Wedding Recap #1

It's so funny because I've been following wedding blogs for almost 2 years now and after each bride got married I read their posts explaining how difficult they found it to start their wedding recaps.  I never quite understood why they were having a problem.  Start with the beginning and move forward...seemed pretty simple at the time.

And yet, here I am 13 days after my wedding and I don't have a clue how to begin putting into words the sheer magnitude of what took place and how I felt (and still feel).  So my apologies if my wedding recaps seem a little scattered, out of order, and filled with a ton of pictures.  I will also apologize right now for the sheer amount of posts that will soon follow.  There are SO many things I want to talk about (and so many pictures to post).

So, as I patiently wait for our professional pictures to come back, I will start with the days leading up to the wedding and will then move onto our rehearsal.

Our wedding took place outdoors at my mom and step dad's house so I spent nearly every waking hour in the weeks leading up to the wedding working in their yard.  And when I wasn't spreading mulch or laying down flooring under the tents I was finishing centerpieces and the other gazillion little details that needed to be done.

Besides all the "physical" work and the sore muscles I encountered, I would honestly say that the most difficult part of the entire process was when I finally had to open myself up to the idea that I needed help from family and friends in order to pull off this shindig.    It was terrifying planning this huge party by myself, but for some reason in my mind I found it "more" terrifying to have to ask for help in doing it.  And to my surprise, the moments in the days before the wedding where I recognized and accepted this as a necessity, will remain some of the most important and most memorable moments of the whole wedding process.

On the Friday before the wedding, my family, wedding party and close friends pulled together as a team.  We had people hanging paper lanterns, stringing lights, ironing the linens, setting up centerpieces, folding napkins, putting final touches on our photo wall, pulling weeds and blowing leaves, and so much more!  It was such beautiful chaos and it brings tears just thinking about it.

Centerpieces waiting to be distributed

200+ Paper lanterns

Brother in Law working on the photo wall

Grandma ironing the table linens

Best Friend Kevin blowing leaves off the "wedding aisle"

Bride to be with Mother in Law hanging Lanterns

As soon as everyone arrived and we started setting up and I could really see things coming together, it was as if someone waved a magic wand over me and all the pre-wedding anxiety was gone.  I absolutely, without a doubt, loved this day just as much as my actual wedding day.  Totally AMAZING!!!

Mulch, Mulch and More Mulch

We've had to make some necessary changes to our wedding location (my parents house) over the last week due to the weather. It has rained more in the past 3 weeks than I remember getting all last summer combined. And as a result of the rain, the area where the reception is being held continues to flood causing major problems.

Instead of worrying about adding landscaping that is going to wash away or blow away in the next storm we just decided to have mulch brought in. My fiance is good friends with a family who owns their own mill and they produce and color the mulch to your specifications. We had them come over and measure how much mulch we would need to order and when he said 30 yards I had no idea what that meant.

I had no idea until the truck pulled up this morning and I saw him unloading this.....

I'm not even sure the pictures do it justice....let's just say THAT'S A LOT OF MULCH!!

Wedding Blah's.....

"The Knot" tells me that I am 284 days away from my wedding! I think that gives me a good enough excuse to take a break from wedding planning. Don't get me wrong...wedding planning has been the funnest thing ever, but I'm tired. I need a break. It's probably going to be a small break, but as long as I can rest long enough to get my "second wind".

Next week is my one year anniversary of our engagement and I have been wedding planning this-whole-time. If you'll remember here, here and here, I changed my wedding plans earlier this summer and had to start over from scratch. It has been a blast....but I need to rest.

I feel like I'm ahead of schedule with the planning anyway, so a little time off to re-group shouldn't do any harm. Wish me luck!

And before I forget.........MY WEDDING DRESS IS IN.........So much for taking 6 weeks, it was only 9 days and that baby was here. I've yet to pick it up yet due to the fact that I just don't know if I want it in my house. I'm not sure I have the will power to stay away from it. I want to wear it ALL.THE.TIME

Wedding Industry Can Suck

I've talked numerous times about how happy I am with our revised wedding plans. And still to this exact moment I'm more excited than I ever thought possible. I'm still okay with the fact that my wedding will not have grand chandeliers, a gigantic dancefloor, and a ballroom that is picture perfect. It's the meaning behind our new wedding plans that make my heart flutter.

In the beginning stages of my wedding planning I stalked every wedding blog I could find, I over-saturated my senses with inpiration photos. It seemed like we were planning the perfect wedding with perfect details because that's what the wedding industry had led me to believe. Don't get me wrong, I'm still detail oriented and I know our wedding will be beautiful. But, it will look like us, not like it came straight out of a magazine.

And as far as our wedding budget is concerned, I'm content with what we have spent so far. I'm content that we are concentrating more on why we buy certain things and not listening to the wedding industry who is telling us what to buy. The wedding industry also encourages you to buy, buy, buy like there's no tomorrow....because you should, because you have to!

Hopefully five or ten years down the road we will still reflect on our wedding and not have any regrets. I hope we will still think our "simple" centerpieces were cool and our cheap (but creative) favors were awesome.

And this is why I'm loving every minute of planning our non-budget, casual, backyard wedding.

Ceremony Issue

I finally took the time last night to work on our ceremony. I had tried doing this a couple weeks ago, but my mind wasn't in the right place so I decided it would be better to put it off....until now!

I am happy with what we came up with, but I am a little worried that it may be longer than what I had anticipated. Since the ceremony is in my parent's yard, we are only seating our family members (and the elderly) and everyone else will be standing around us. I'm just afraid that maybe this is too long for them to stand. I wouldn't be happy as a guest standing in the heat for 20-30 minutes, would you? I don't know what to do.......I guess I will wait and discuss this with our officiant when we meet with him in a couple weeks. I think where I went wrong was thinking that the ceremony would only be about 10 minutes long. What I didn't take into consideration was the time it would take for the processional. I have 5 bridemaids so it will take another 4-5 minutes for the bridal party to make their entrance. Plus, I added a small "family" portion to our ceremony that I hadn't been planning on before.

What to do.......I really don't want to have to rent 100+ more chairs in order to seat everyone, but I guess if I need to then I will. Not to mention that the space where we plan to have the ceremony just isn't quite big enough for that many "seated" guests.

Uurrrggghhhh.......I hate when I don't take all the little details into consideration when I'm planning.

Oh, Happy Day....

I had a terrible start to the week with losing my cat and all, but I must say....today has been an incredible day.

Last night we met with the rental company and picked out our canopies, tables, chairs, linens, china, stemware, etc and it was so much fun. Seeing everything in real life finally made all this seem real. But, the best part about it was that our rental costs came in about $3,000 less than what I had intended it to be....CHA CHING!!

Then today the DJ company called me back and oh, what a story this is. I'll try to give you the short version in hope that I won't confuse you too much. Well, the owner of the DJ company called me today and he began the conversation by asking about our wedding/ceremony, the atmosphere, the theme, what we were looking for, what was our vision, etc. He has 12 disc jockeys and he wanted to make sure that we were matched up with someone who fit our needs and personality. When he told me the name of the person we were matched with I couldn't believe it. We were matched up with someone I know......what a small world!!

Back in the day, (when we used to not have a care in the world, when we didn't need to be in bed before 10pm in order to function the next day, when we didn't have house payments or husbands, when traveling to see good friends and listen to great bands wasn't so expensive or tiring, when sleeping on the floor of your friends apartment only seemed natural, etc) we used to follow this band called Oregon Dreamchild (they are awesome). Well, to make a long story short (as I said I would do in the first place) one of my girlfriends and her boyfriend (at the time) stayed in touch with the lead singer, Rich. He actually played at her wedding this past year and oh, what a great time we all had. Well, Rich is the "match" that the owner of the DJ company set us up with. I couldn't be more excited.

I also got in touch with the caterer today that we would love to use, and he was such an awesome guy. He had a great personality and boy oh boy is he giving us a great deal! Next week is our tasting so I'm excited. If we decide to go with his company we are going to save about $1,000 versus using his competitor. Another CHA CHING!!

We are not doing a wedding cake, but instead using cupcakes. I am 100% sure that I want to use one of the local bakeries (regardless of the cost, which we will discuss in a second). They are amazing and I don't think anyone around could compete as far as flavor. Well, I call them today to set up an appt. to discuss what we want, but they aren't accepting any orders for 2010 until January....bummer! I will be sure to be the first one on their doorstep in order to make sure that my wedding day is reserved. Now, back to the cost....I am saving over $3 per person by doing cupcakes instead of cake.....CHA CHING!

Well, that's all I have for today......

It's Official..........

We are having a backyard wedding at my mom's house!! And to top off that wonderful news....we have changed the date from October 9, 2010 to........(drum roll, please)........July 10, 2010! I'm so excited I'm having problems putting anything into words. This morning I started the day with 444 days until the wedding and now I only have 353.......OMG.....I must start planning. I can't believe that I'm less than a year away from MY WEDDING DAY!

Gotta go.....my checklist needs updated, save the dates need made, engagment pictures need scheduled.....and the madness begins!

And we start over.......

So after declaring to the world last week our newly revised wedding plans we basically had to start over from scratch. And as much as you would think that the idea of "starting over" would be stressful, it has actually been so much fun! I feel so much more at ease and I'm having so much more fun with the whole process now. I am 100% certain that this is how wedding planning is supposed to feel and I LOVE IT!!!

Step 1: Find a location. We checked around our city for some outdoor venues but as of yet we have come up empty handed. They are either too far away, don't allow alcohol, don't allow tent/canopies or are not handicap accessible. So we are currently hoping and praying that my mom's house will be the ideal location. I have a company meeting me there tomorrow so they can measure and get a visual of the location and then tell me if this spot will be do-able or not! I don't know if I've ever prayed so hard for something, but I want this to work....I need this to work!

Step 2: Decor. In some ways we are keeping some of the same ideas. I will still be using black, red & damask which will allow me to use the damask table runners that I already purchased. (thank god, because I love them) The only major change might be the centerpieces. I don't think I will be doing such large, formal centerpieces as I had once planned. I love the casualness of the outdoor wedding so less formal is okay by me. And cheaper too.....so many good ideas I just need to decide on one and go for it. I found some black felt candelabra's yesterday at Micheal's that are PERFECT for my damask theme but they only had 4...I bought them immediately. I also am going to pick up the 1 they have at the Michael's in the town where I work. But that only makes 5.......if any of you have a Michaels near you and would be willing to help a girl out......let me know!

(FYI ~ this is NOT the same one I bought, but you get the idea)

And since my mom's yard is full of tress, why not hang some paper lanterns??

Step 3: Food. Okay, I have to be honest.......I can't wait to decide on the food (probably because I love to eat). But really, we are thinking more of a BBQ type setting with pulled pork, ribs, potato salad, mac n cheese, green beans etc. I think the food will reflect the personalities of not only us, but also our family and guests. Some of my most favorite memories are those which contain a backyard BBQ for the backdrop.

Step 4: Dress. Before we changed our plans, I was totally picturing myself in a princess ballgown, but now that things are less formal (and outdoors) I'm really not sure of the type of dress I want. I'm thinking along the lines of something shorter that will show off some fabulous shoes (and won't drag on the grass the whole time).

I'm really loving this little number by Alfred Angelo

Now if only my legs could look like that models............

Well, that's about as far as we have gotten on this whole planning process........now we just need to finalize some details and keep forging ahead!

Revised Wedding Plans

So I just might have made one of the most grown-up, responsible decisions to date......We have completely changed our wedding plans and hopefully with this change it will save us about $10,000 (or more). I've been bouncing ideas around for quite some time but just recently decided to voice them and when it comes right down to it.........It just doesn't sit well in my stomach that we were going to spend such a large amount on the wedding. We've got a new house and our project list for improvements keeps getting bigger and bigger as we find more ways to build equity. I think I would rather take the money we would have spent on the wedding and put it into home improvements. Some of you may think I'm crazy, but I've got to do what feels right for me (and Don).

So as of last night........we have decided against the grand hotel, crystal chandeliers and ballroom that takes your breath away. Instead we are going to have an outdoor, down-to-earth, more casual event. Even up to the last minute I wasn't sure if this decision was right, but when I woke up this morning and felt like the earth had been removed off my shoulders I knew this was the right thing to do.

If it's even possible......I'm even more excited for our wedding today, then I've been the past 8 months since we've been engaged! I'm proud of Don and I for having the courage to stand up and do what is best for US........

McCamly Plaza

Hallelujah......I think we've found it........we are 99.99% sure that the wedding and reception will take place here. The accomodations are so nice and the physical space is exactly what we have been looking for. We are going to do the ceremony in the Miller Room

And will have the reception in the Branson Ball Room

I know, I know.......these pics are horrible!! They were replacing some of the bulbs in the chandeliers so it was pretty dark in there.....if only I had my sister's photography talent and knew how to run the camera to get a better shot.

The other option we had was to have the reception in the newly renovated Penthouse Banquet Room, but the room was rather long and narrow which didn't leave us a lot of space for Don.

Well, that's the update for now....hopefully, things will work out and we can get ourselves booked for October 9, 2010.

Happy Wednesday!

Wedding Venue

Okay, so Don and I checked out the new Holiday Inn over by the mall as a possible wedding site. It was nice, but I'm just not sold on it yet. I really want to keep looking at other places. For those of you who are married....is the reception/ceremony site something you will just "know" when it's right? Is it like your wedding dress where everyone says "You will just know"?

I would also like to check out McCamley Plaza and also the Heritage Dome Center.