Holy #$!%, We're Engaged!

Recaps, Part 1

2009-08-23T13:36:00.006-04:00

A couple things have been contributing to my procrastination regarding posting recaps of the wedding. The first is that I don't know where to start; the second is that I feel like I have no time these days to post. The second still holds true, but I can still jot down my memories here and there when I have time -- after all, my other fear is that I'm going to forget all of these little details! As for the first, well, I'll just start with something random and go from there.

The week of the wedding, my friend and bridesmaid Marjorie flew into town on Wednesday around noon. I had spent the earlier part of the week making sure the apartment was clean and doing other wedding-related projects, I'm sure -- that's probably when I was designing and printing the programs. I picked her up from the airport and we headed straight over to Meghan Hicks's house to drop off my dress for steaming. Meghan did an amazing job with my dress bustle and alterations, and had mentioned that if I had trouble getting my dress steamed, she could do it. Well, after weeks of procrastination followed by making a few last-minute phone calls and realizing that stores charge an arm and a leg for dress steaming, I called up Meghan and asked her if she could still do it. After all, I'd rather support her than some nameless shop. So we dropped off my dress and then went out to lunch.

Actually, my memory is now failing me and I don't remember the details of what we ate and when, and what day we ran which little errand. So there goes my chronological recap. Instead, these are the things Marjorie and I did between Wednesday and Friday, in no particular order:

-Ate at Stevens and Stevens. Yum, yum, yum.

-Picked up a new large plastic bag to put my newly steamed wedding dress in when we picked it up. We stopped at a dry cleaner's and I asked to purchase a single long bag. The owner looked at me funny. Confirmed I only wanted one. And gave it to me -- for free! I tried to offer her payment, but she just shook her head and wished me a good day. Yay for small happy things.

-Pressed all of our table runners (purchased from another bride, and for resale now):

-Finished printing out programs, Flickr cards, our table number signs, and other assorted signs; details and pictures to follow. I bought a brand new color cartridge for our inkjet printer specifically for wedding projects, and am really happy I did. The other thing that got a lot of use was my two paper cutters. It was quite a crafty week!

-Got beautified at Clique for waxing -- I had only recently heard of this place, and I'm mad I didn't find it sooner, because I highly recommend it and would go back, if only I hadn't moved immediately after! And we also got pedicures, because I figured it would be hard to get that done during the wedding weekend itself.

-Made our wedding arch and spray-painted it black. The arch was purchased from Save On Crafts for $15.99, which is about $70 less than every other arch I had found, most of which are meant for permanent placement in gardens. It was flimsy, but it did the job:

We got spray paint, small terra cotta pots, and sand from Wal-Mart. We intended for the feet of the arch to be inserted into the pots of sand (to make it heavy enough to not be blown away), but the person who pitched in in the end to help with last-minute set up used pipe cleaners to attach the arch to the fence behind it, and propped the legs next to the pots, instead of placing them in them. Oh well. It didn't blow away, which is all that mattered.

-And the biggest thing of all, we prepped all the flowers! I ordered wholesale flowers from FiftyFlowers.com, FarmsToGo.com, and Costco.com. Bridesmaid Jamie used her Costco membership to help me out with the Costco ordering, and I had no troubles with the others. The flowers were all delivered on Friday, and as soon as they got there, we got to work prepping them and putting them in water. It was a LOT of work -- more than I had anticipated, and I should have recruited more people to help us out. I'll do a full flowers recap later, with lots of details and pictures.

If Marjorie hadn't come to help me out, I don't know what I would have done. She was so helpful, and only complained a little bit in the face of my DIY craziness, and put up with all of my last-minute stress. A lot of my other friends and family couldn't come early because of things going on with their lives -- my sister graduated from college two days before the wedding, and everyone else has jobs they couldn't take extra time off from, my fiance included, and if it weren't for the fact that Marjorie and I had were in the time between medical school graduation and beginning residency, I would have been totally up a creek.

Hello Again!

2009-06-20T12:15:00.004-04:00

I know I've been gone forEVER, but not without good reason.

First, there was the week of insanity leading up to the wedding weekend.
Then, there was the wedding weekend.
Then, there was the honeymoon.
Then we got back from the honeymoon and had to move immediately, so we packed up the apartment and loaded the moving truck -- ourselves -- in a day and a half.
Then we drove to Philadelphia, closed on our first house (!!!), and unloaded the truck.
That was two weeks ago, and it's been filled with unpacking boxes and trying to get settled.

And oh yeah, I started my intern year!

So I have lots and lots and lots of updating. But in the meantime, here is a treat for you:

Wedding Highlights - Campbell from Paul Routon Jr on Vimeo.

So that should keep you occupied for a couple days, at least :)
I promise I'll be back with lots of updates about how everything went, my crazy DIY projects -- including DIY flowers! -- and lots and lots of photos. As soon as I get a chance to catch my breath!

Wow!

2009-05-15T10:14:00.004-04:00

Only 9 days to go, and things have been crazy the last two weeks!

Last week was my graduation week, filled with awesome Senior Week activities and culminating with my speech to probably more than 1,000 people (biggest audience yet!) and getting my hood and diploma. Woohoo! Eric came for the weekend and in between the festivities we had our final meeting with our caterer to finalize all the little details AND got our marriage license!

This week has been full-fledged wedding-related. Among the larger things to do is the very nebulous "clean the apartment." The guest bathroom is sparkling, and the rest of the rooms are presentable, at least; a good scouring and vacuuming will come this weekend.

Our second bedroom, which we used to use as an office, but which was subletted out to my old roommate until the first of the month, is now an office again. And it's filled to the brim with everything for the wedding. All the alcohol is here now (my friends and I took a trip to Nashville the other day to buy 10 cases of Yuengling!), and our 100 vases, plus all the other assorted decorations. It's semi-organized, but still threatening to take over at least half of the room. Another quarter of the room is filled with empty boxes I've accumulated over the last few months that we'll need for transporting wedding items and for packing.

The to-do list is still pretty long, but the big things are done: reception numbers are in, rehearsal dinner numbers are in, and the music is done. I had my hair trial during graduation week, and it held up great. I'll talk to the photographer and videographer this week to make final plans. The big things will get taken care of, and the little things are just little things.

I don't know if I'll feel the urge to blog in the next week, since things will be so crazy, and I kind of thrive under those kinds of conditions, so here are just a few final thoughts:

-My aunt and uncle were planning to come, but it turns out my uncle's brain cancer is back, and he's having surgery around the time of the wedding instead. I'm sad I won't be able to see them, but I hope everything goes well with his treatment.
-The wife of one of Eric's cousins wasn't going to be able to come, we had been told, because she's due to give birth in July, and while I questioned that (I can get into obstetrics rants at another time, but it's usually not a medically necessary restriction), I accepted it. We got their RSVP in the mail yesterday, though, and it looks like she's coming! I'm quite excited about that.
-I didn't believe it would happen, but we got two RSVP cards with no names on them! Even though there's a line that specifically says "Name(s):" I'm so glad I secretly numbered them on the back so I could match them up to the guest list. The best part? They came from a son and his mother! When I figured it out, I laughed.

Sorry they're rotated; I can't be bothered with figuring out how to fix that right now.

Finally, I've been watching the weather. If you live oh, anywhere in the eastern half of the country, you've had some crazy rains the last few weeks. But the 10-day forecast was showing rain yesterday through this weekend for Louisville, and then becoming sunny and warm next week. As of this morning, there's a forecast for our wedding day, and it's great! Partly cloudy, high 78, 10% chance of precipitation, and sunset at 8:55 pm (so we can go back to the Glassworks roof for sunset pictures!). Wonderful!

This is what one month of mail looks like

2009-05-05T19:34:00.002-04:00

When it's the month before your wedding month:

I had all my mail held at the post office while I was in New Jersey this past month. I got home late last night and found most of those boxes inside my apartment, put there by my building manager for the UPS guy. I woke up early this morning to go pick up all the rest of the mail, which consisted of the large Kohl's box, a smaller box you can't see, and that large red bin full of mail.

Including all of our RSVPs!

Now I just have to unpack my car, put everything away in the apartment, and get re-settled. My roommate moved out this weekend before I got home, so the apartment is all mine again, and I can spread out all the wedding crap in the other bedroom!

Let the countdown begin!

Oh yeah, even though I really really really want to open all of those boxes, I'm waiting until this weekend, when Eric comes for my graduation. He should get to enjoy opening them, too, right?

Four Weeks to Go!

2009-04-26T09:47:00.005-04:00

With four weeks to go, the checklist is getting smaller, but still remains substantial. Here are some random thoughts:

-Last Friday was nice and we sat outside for lunch with our real estate agent in Philly. We were only partially shaded by the overhang from the restaurant, and my right arm got a little sun. In the back of my mind, a little bell went off. Ding ding ding! You don't want any tan lines in a strapless dress! Yesterday, it was really gorgeous out, and after putting in our offer for our first house (!!!), we put the top down on my car to head to a friend's cookout. My arms got a little more sun, and I got a teeny tiny farmer's tan. Not good. I use an SPF 15 face lotion every morning, but I think it's time to start applying sunscreen to my shoulders, arms, and neckline regularly as well.

-It's supposed to be 90 degrees today. I'm living 15 minutes from the beach. I didn't bring a bathing suit out here and I'm not supposed to get tan. Bummer.

-On the fitness front, things aren't going so well. I was doing pretty well with weight loss last month before I came out here to NJ. But Eric doesn't have a kitchen in his efficiency, so we survive on microwaveable food or eat out. Not so good for the waist line. And then we were supposed to be training for a 5K that was to have taken place yesterday, but the last two weeks have been so cold and rainy I wasn't able to train much. At the last minute, we scheduled our house offer meeting with our agent for yesterday morning instead, so I didn't have to run. Whew.

-Eric ordered a wedding band and we found pocket squares for the guys (instead of boutonnieres). At every jewelry store we went to, they asked how long until the wedding, and when he replied, "A month from today," they all responded with variations on the theme of "Wow, you need to get your ring!" Yes, thank you, that's why we're here. He got a white gold band with a brushed satin finish in the center, should be in within 2 weeks. He still needs to settle on groomsmen presents, though.

-Eric's bachelor party was last weekend, and ... no more drunkenness for either of us from here on out.

-My bachelorette party is this coming weekend. I expect it to be tamer than his party was anyway, but still, no drunkenness on my part.

-We need to finish making our music playlist. We don't have a first dance song yet...

-We have no idea what our ceremony is going to be like. No readings picked out, no outline. To be honest, it bothers me more because I need to make programs, not because I want to know what the ceremony is going to be like...

-We've started using a teeth whitening system. It makes my teeth sensitive, so we do it every other day instead of every day. We forgot to take "before" pictures, but I'm not sure I see any results yet (we've done it three times so far, out of seven).

-We've stopped chewing on our fingernails and cuticles. With semi-success. I might need to get regular manicures from here on out to prevent me from biting. When I do my own manicure, the mental block to stop me from fiddling with them doesn't exist, but when I pay money for it... Seriously, you'd think I could have better self control than this.

-I'm going to place my flower orders tomorrow. Yay!

-The number of smaller things we still have left to do is pretty large, but I'm also ignoring a lot of them. Either they happen, or they don't. In the meantime, I can't wait until tomorrow to find out if our house offer got accepted!

2009-04-23T09:32:00.000-04:00

So what am I going to make with all of these flowers? Here's the list:

One bouquet for me
7 bouquets for the bridesmaids
1 flower girl container of some sort (basket, flower ball, flower wand, etc)
3 corsages of some sort
15 centerpieces
Decorations for our altar/arbor
A cake topper
An arrangement for the entryway/escort card table.

Whew, right?

Nothing will be too fussy; the general idea is that by saving money we can have lots of flowers, and the beauty of the flowers will be in the fact that there are so many of them (1,885, to be exact!). I think it will work out beautifully. I might still farm out the corsages to a florist, but I have time to make that decision. Eric doesn't want boutonnieres, so I don't have to make or buy any, and the guys will wear pocket squares instead. The aisle decorations will be paper lanterns, so no flowers needed there. Anything I'm forgetting?

Now, for the logistics. First, I have to place the order, and I'm going to do that soon, assuming I don't decide to change the color scheme :) They'll be delivered on Thursday and Friday of the wedding week (Sunday wedding, remember), and I'll tend to them and get them into water and let them open until Saturday morning. Saturday will be flower day, and when they're all done we'll bring them over to the reception site to be stored overnight.

To keep the apartment chilly enough to not have the flowers burst open upon arriving, I'll be turning the air conditioning down a few degrees for a few days (ozone layer, please forgive me!). I have to acquire some 5 gallon buckets to hold the flowers in, as well as some floralife to keep the flowers happy, and some oasis foam forms for the arbor arrangement and cake topper. To make it a group project, I got a few pairs of floral shears (I got them in the Target $1 aisle sometime last year, when they were selling lots of gardenening stuff). I've already acquired about 100 assorted small vases from various thrift stores to use on the reception tables, so we'll be putting multiple small vase arrangements on each table to add to the feeling of overabundance. The plan is that any crafty bridesmaids, friends, or relatives who want to help out on Saturday, can, and everyone else can hang out on their own in Louisville or head down to Churchill Downs, where a group will be headed.

I acknowledge that it sounds like a lot, but I'm fully prepared to tackle this project, and to not freak out if for some reason it all goes horribly wrong. You read it here: I hereby promise not to freak out if for some reason the flowers go horribly wrong!

I don't have too much of a plan for the actual designs themselves. For the bridesmaid bouquets, if the bridesmaids want to pick out their own flowers or make their own bouquets, that will be great. For the centerpieces, all the vases will just have a mix of flowers, and same for the arch and escort card table arrangement. The only big question mark left is my own bouquet. Once upon a time, I really loved the idea of a cascading bouquet in all white. Right now, multi-colored hand-tied bouquets are really popular. I like the idea of both. What should I do?

All white, cascading bouquet (source). Granted, it looks a little dated with the ivy, but you get the idea:

Colored, hand-tied (source):

Another colored, probably hand-tied bouquet (source):

All white, cascade (source):

Maybe the fact that all of the cascade bouquet pictures I can find all line look so dated should tell me that I'm leaning toward a really 80s look?

But wait! Here are some viable options:

Colored cascade, smaller scale, with ruscus instead of ivy (source):

Another colored bouquet (it's even purple and green!), sort of a cross between hand-tied and cascade, with amaranthus to give it the cascading look (source):

According to The Knot, I should pick a smaller round bouquet because I'm petite, a smaller round bouquet because my dress profile is slimmer, a smaller cascade because the wedding is in a loft-type space, or a smaller hand-tied bouquet because the ceremony is outdoors. Hmm, that doesn't help me much, other than telling me I should keep my bouquet small (boo; I like big ones!).

Round or cascade, white or colored? Decisions, decisions. Something tells me I'll decide on Saturday, May 23, as I'm about to put it together...

Engagement Photos Have Been Blogged!

2009-04-22T15:32:00.006-04:00

Two weekends ago, Eric and I met up with Carmen of Carmen Fong Photography, to cash in on the free engagement session we won last year. We met down in College Park, on the UMD campus, to show some alumni school spirit. It was a miserable, rainy, cold day, but Carmen was awesome and trekked around campus with us. Eventually it stopped raining, but I don't think the sun ever came out until we were driving back up to NJ/PA later that evening. It's OK, though; I've heard a few times, and Carmen agreed, that cloudy days are good for pictures because you're not worrying about glare or shadows or squinty eyes. That's the silver lining!

Carmen was awesome to work with, and I'm really sorry we're getting married in Louisville and that we already have a photographer booked, because I would love to have her as our wedding photographer! Unlike the other engagement session we had a long time ago, in which the unexperienced photographer we modeled for made me stressed out beyond belief by not giving us any instruction whatsoever, Carmen was very cognizant of the fact that Eric and I have no clue about anything photographically related, and gave us very clear instructions to help make us not look like idiots. Professional models we are not, no matter how much America's Next Top Model I watch.

After a great photo session, complete with an outfit change for me, and tons of help from my sister Laurel, I blog stalked Carmen ritually, even during last weekend, when she told me she would be in Las Vegas.

And yesterday, my stalking was rewarded! We've been blogged!

Here are my favorites, stolen off of Carmen's blog. All credits to Carmen Fong Photography, of course!

Once I realized the forecast for the weekend included rain, I packed my new rain boots and bright yellow jacket and figured I'd make the best of it. I got this jacket at Gap a few years ago on clearance, and I always receive compliments on it. I love it. Laurel brought the awesome umbrella, which immediately got earmarked as a prop.

I like this one because it showcases what I call the "M Circle," which visitors coming through the main campus entrance see and which gets replanted in Maryland colors periodically. I was initially a teensy tiny bit disappointed to see that it was yellow and not red (my favorite), but it matches my jacket perfectly! I love the composition of this shot.

We asked Carmen to take a photo of us that conforms to the New York Times wedding announcement guidelines:

Couples posing for pictures should arrange themselves with their eyebrows on exactly the same level and with their heads fairly close together. Couple pictures should be printed in a horizontal format.

Talk about specific! I submitted our wedding announcement the week before our photo shoot, and now all I need to do is submit the photo. Whether we get in or not remains to be seen, but it's exciting to think about!

Here's one of the photos from our NYT pose:

To be honest, I hope some of the others in that series turn out a little better, but not because of Carmen's photography. My face looks a little fat (I'm going to have to remember that's not the best angle for me!), my hair looks a little wet (smallest of the problems), and Eric's eyes look a little tired (he WAS tired, though). Or maybe I'm just being hypercritical. We'll see how the others turn out.

Eric really likes this one, as evidenced by the fact that it's now his Facebook profile pic:

We're so excited about our photos that we've even been discussing whether to scrap our original plan for a guest book -- a coffee table book of Louisville -- and make a photo book of our engagement photos instead, to share with everyone at the wedding.

Go check out the rest yourself! We had a great time working with Carmen, and I can't wait to see the rest of our photos! If you're looking for a photographer in the DC area (or anywhere -- she'll travel!), I highly recommend getting in touch with her. Thank you, Carmen!!!

Flowers chosen?

2009-04-22T13:27:00.005-04:00

Sorry, I know it's been a long time since I've given you any sort of meaningful attention, Harry Kalas aside. There isn't too much big stuff going on, just lots of little progress every day, chipping away at various things on the to-do list.

Well, here's an update for you. I think I've decided what flowers to order!

I worked at a florist in college, which was by far one of the best jobs I've ever had. Even on the most stressful day (think Valentine's Day), you were super busy boxing and wrapping up dozens of beautiful flowers. How stressful can that really be? I loved seeing the wedding flowers that we put together, and developed a very strong sense of what flowers I preferred. I will admit to one day, 9 years ago (oh my gosh, has it really been that long!?), writing down what I wanted my wedding bouquet to look like. My tastes haven't changed too much in the ensuing years, I have to admit.

One of the best/worst things about working at a florist was the development of the idea that I am capable of doing my own wedding flowers. A double-edged sword, to be sure, and I wouldn't necessarily recommend it for everyone, due to the stress that is sure to come with it. And who knows, after the wedding, I might not recommend it to anyone!

Actually, I'm really excited and looking forward to being able to work on my own flowers, although some of the logistics are going to require attention. Over the last few days, I've been perusing bulk flower websites, and here's what I've decided to order:

I'm aiming for mostly purple (all shades) and green, with a hint of pink. Sort of a wild, loosy goosey look, not too structured. Does this meet the mark?

Here's the flower breakdown:
Lavender roses
Pink/white bicolor roses
White spray roses
Purple lisianthus
Lavender sweet pea
White alstromeria
Purple alstromeria
Bupleurum (green)
Purplush/bluish limonium
Assorted colors of hypericum berries (for the berries in our "vines and berries" motif) (I'm hoping there's not too many red ones in the mix, but more of the green, pink, and peachy ones)
Assorted colors of statice (any color this comes in will be fine, except for maybe the hot pink)
And for greens, I'm using ruscus (evoking the vines in our motif) and lemonleaf.

I don't want too much of a pastel color scheme, but there are more flowers that come in bright pinks than come in bright purples. Hopefully the purple lisianthus will help keep things in the bold spectrum.

What do you think about the sweet pea? It comes in a variety of bold pink colors, but not a true purple, only lavender. Stick with the purple shade and risk being too pastel, or trade it for a darker pink and risk bringing too much pink into the mix? Similarly, trade in the lavender roses for something else (white or pink?) or leave them alone?

I actually have no problems with pink, and love bold pink flowers, but I've seen a few pictures of florals done in all purple and they're really nice looking, too, so I think that's what I'm going to go for. On the other hand, the eggplant bridesmaid dresses might look nice with a punch of pink, don't you think? Or should I stick with the color scheme and go all purple and green? You see where I'm getting stuck...

I traded the ability to pick the exact varieties of some of the flowers (roses and alstro in particular) for the lower price that comes with just ordering "lavender" roses. Hopefully they'll be blue curiosas, but if not, it won't be the end of the world.

Here's an interesting dilemma that occurs when ordering bulk flowers: They only come in bulk sizes! So if you want a huge variety of flowers, you quickly end up adding $3000+ worth of flowers to your online shopping cart and kicking yourself because one of the main points of doing your own flowers was to save money! Or you can find sites that let you buy in smaller quantity, but you end up spending just as much money because the unit price goes up a lot. For example, I originally had lilies, ranunculus, amaranthus, freesia, anemones, and delphinium in the mix, not to mention a bunch of other shades of roses, lisianthus, and alstromeria. But I really don't need 100 of each flower. Well, I'm sure I could decide that I did need them, but our budget can't take it. Instead, if the deliveries arrive and I still wish I had some lily, freesia, or anemones to help balance the color scheme, or I still wish I had some amaranthus just for the luxury, I can head across the street to our local florist or out to Whole Foods to see what I can get on short notice and in small quantities.

So that's the plan for what to order. Have any suggestions for colors/flowers? I welcome them! In a later post, I'll talk about what I'm going to make with all of these flowers.

No good titles come to mind, but this is about Harry Kalas

2009-04-14T19:26:00.005-04:00

Yesterday afternoon, I was eating a Wawa turkey hoagie and watching some HGTV while playing around online, and I saw a Facebook status update from Eric: "Harry Kalas is found passed out in the press box in DC and taken to the hospital. Not good."

I immediately hit the "Sports" link on cnn.com, which was the other tab I had open in Firefox, and when that didn't give me any news, I went over to Philly.com. And there, the headline told me that Kalas was not just unconscious, but had been taken to GW Hospital and pronounced dead.

This news has hit many people very hard, including Eric. He's a diehard baseball fan, and one who has enjoyed sharing his knowledge and love of baseball with me (although it's been extremely frustrating for him at times, I'm sure!). Harry Kalas has been announcing Phillies games for what seems like forever, and his instantly recognizable voice is known to many baseball fans, regardless of their team affiliation. His death is the talk of the town today in Philadelphia, still.

But the headline hit me like a punch in the gut for another reason. And then I felt instantly guilty, but still couldn't shake my initial reaction and emotion: "Sh*t. I wonder if he did the recording yet?"

Yeah, I hate to be THAT bride, that wedding-centric bride, but Kalas's untimely death had a personal connection, a wedding connection, and that's where my mind flew first.

~~~

You see, sometime last year I read about two weddings in which Harry recorded the introduction of the wedding party into the reception. One was via Weddingbee; one of the Bees attended a wedding in Philly where this happened, and blogged about it. The other was via a Philly DJ who blogs, and I happened upon his website completely randomly, looking for information on paper lanterns or something like that, and read about a wedding he had done where Harry made the wedding party introductions. I instantly knew it was an awesome idea, and, if I could pull it off, the best surprise for Eric ever.

After idly wandering around the internet looking for Harry's contact info (I'm not sure if I expected him to have a public Phillies email address or not), I finally called the Phillies one day, and was told that Harry didn't make recordings like that. When I explained that I knew of two weddings where it had occurred, the Phillies girl replied, "Well, it must have been a personal favor for someone he knew." I somehow doubted that, and pressed again for a mailing address (at that point, I figured a real letter would be better than an email). She gave it to me, and in early February, I sent off a letter to Harry, asking if he would pretty please record our wedding party introduction. I believe I promised to be future season ticket holders someday, and to raise our children in the glorious Phillies tradition.

The last weekend in February, I went skiing in Snowshoe, WV, where there is no cell phone reception. On the drive back to Louisville, once we regained contact with the outside world, my friend Noah (who I was traveling with) and I both logged into our voicemail accounts. And all of a sudden, as I was listening to my messages, I exclaimed, "Holy #$!%!" causing Noah to wonder if he was about to drive off a West Virginia cliff.

Because there was HIS voice. On my voicemail. "Holly, this is Harry Kalas with the Phillies. I got your letter, and I would be happy to introduce your wedding party when you get married in May. The way you go about that would be to contact Mr. Rob Brooks. His number at the Phillies is ... and he'll tell you how to go about it. You can send a script, or fax or email a script to him, and then we can get it done before the nuptuals. I'd be happy to do it, my very best wishes to you and yours! Thanks."

Harry Kalas! On MY voicemail! It's a classic Harry cadence, with funny emphasis here and there, but all his own. Noah, who wasn't familiar with Harry, remarked, "He has the most announcer-y voice I've ever heard!"

Over the next couple of weeks, I got in touch with Rob Brooks, broadcasting manager for the Phillies, and found out what I had to do. Brooks urged me to get my script in soon, because the team would only be in Philadelphia for four days during their first at-home stretch, and if I could get it in then, Harry could record it.

I enlisted the help of Eric's sister, Paige, and friend-and-groomsman Shea, who is the other biggest baseball nut I know. We put together a pretty good script, and I saved it until last Sunday evening, Phillies Opening Day, hoping I could hear some other Harry-isms to insert. I was really pissed when I realized the TV broadcast was being called by the ESPN guys (I probably just revealed my own baseball stupidity there, but oh well). So off the script went to Brooks, with a question about how to make my requested contribution to the Phillies Charities in return for Harry's services.

Two nights ago, I realized I hadn't yet heard back from Brooks regarding how to make my payment, and made a mental note to contact him the next day. But before I could, Harry died.

~~~

So there I was, sitting on the living room floor, stunned. "Sh*t. I wonder if he did the recording yet?"

Crap. I can't believe THAT was my first thought! What kind of horrible person AM I?

But seriously, I wonder if he recorded it yet?!?!

A text message sent to Paige and Shea conveyed the news: "Um, Harry Kalas just died." I knew they would understand the hidden message: What do I do now?

Yeah, I'm THAT bride. Let's just all accept it and move on.

What if the recording hadn't been made?
What if it HAD been made? Could I still use it at the reception?

Eventually, I came to the conclusion that no matter what, Eric deserved to be told that night. The surprise would come 41 days early, but it would still be a surprise. So yesterday evening when we both got home, I told him I had some news. He looked worried, and said, "Is it good or bad?" and I responded, "It's mixed." I didn't even know what to say to him, so I just put my cell phone on speaker, dialed into my voicemail, and gave him the phone.

He had a surprisingly blank look on his face -- that's the reporter in him, I guess, having learned not to show too much emotion, as well as the poker player in him, too -- and I didn't know what he was thinking. But then he responded in the way I knew he would -- he was really surprised, and also touched. The "surprise" was ruined, but he still knew that I had planned it.

So now we're in a weird situation. I clearly can't contact Rob Brooks anytime soon, but I can't stop wondering if Harry had recorded our announcement yet or not. And even if he had, would they still send it to me? And if they did, could we still use it? And what do I do with Harry's voice saved on my phone? I'd like to download the message and save it on my computer instead of my phone; I guess that's something I'll be looking into soon.

Other people have written great things in memory of the great Harry Kalas, and I'm not going to attempt to add anything to that, because I just wouldn't feel qualified. But this is my own personal connection to him, a weird, spooky story that I had to share.

Crafting the Invitations -- Budget

2009-04-05T07:50:00.001-04:00

The whole invitation recap:
Crafting the Invitations -- Graphics
Crafting the Invitations -- Layout
Crafting the Invitations -- Envelopes
Crafting the Invitations -- Rehearsal Dinner Invitation
Crafting the Invitations -- Assembly

I decided to go DIY with the invitations for two reasons: complete control over every detail and the potential to save some money. I definitely accomplished goal #1. Let's see how I did with goal #2:

Graphic design help from Sue: $20 (Thank goodness for Etsy Alchemy!)
Cardstock, package of 250: $20
Only used 130 sheets, so $10.40
Printing at The Reliable Printing Company: $100 + tax = $106
150 envelopes from ActionEnvelopes: $41.67 including s&h
5 sheets of Unryu Thread Paper from PaperMojo.com: $2.20 each + approx s&h = $13 (I bought some other things in the same shipment so I'm estimating the shipping for just the Unryu paper here)
Pack of striped embossed greeting cards: $1.99 + tax = $2.10
Roll of Zots: ~$3
Package of very flat Glue Dots: ~$3
Only used about 2/3 pack: $1.85
Package of sticko brand repositionable tape: $0.75 (Yup! On clearance for 75% off!)

TOTAL: $198.77 Divided by 100 invitations: $1.98/invitation

Don't forget, that includes the rehearsal dinner invitation, too!

We also used 84 postcard stamps (27-cents each), and 84 first-class stamps (42-cents each), and had to send 9 invitations overseas. I estimate we saved about $27 by using a 42-cent and 27-cent stamp on each invitation/RSVP card, rather than a 59-cent and 42-cent stamp if we had had a heavier invitation and used an RSVP envelope. It's not a ton of money, but $27 counts for something!

I also haven't factored into the equation things like the calligraphy marker I used, because I also used it for the save-the-dates and will be able to use it again in the future. Same goes for the new color ink cartridge I bought; it will be used for printing the programs and escort cards and all sorts of random wedding paper paraphernalia. The various pieces of scrapbook paper I bought as inspiration for the design will definitely get used at some point in time for something, so I'm not going to count those, either, and it was less than $10, anyway.

I could have saved a little more by printing at Kinko's instead of using the local printer (about $22), but I definitely would not have gotten the complete, personalized attention of someone as amazing as Eric. I also could have saved on the per-invitation cost by buying envelopes from a different company, but I would have had to have bought a package of 250, leaving me with 100+ extra envelopes at the end. Sure, I could turn around and try to resell them, but that's an added stress I don't want to deal with at this point. As it is, I still have almost 50 left over I'm not sure what to do with.

So $2/invitation really isn't that bad! It turns out that I met both of my goals by DIY-ing my invitations: complete obsessive control AND saving money!

The downside to all of this? I put in a lot of time and energy to get all of this done. Printing the envelopes, lining them, addressing them, and assembling the invitations alone took a good 15-20 hours over a week and a half. I spent almost two entire weekends just working on this stuff. I watched a lot of DVR-ed TV episodes during that time, including the entire current season of ER. Designing the invitation and rehearsal dinner were also pretty time consuming, although it was spread out over a number of months, so it wasn't too bad. Next year, as an Ob/Gyn intern, I'll be making roughly $11.50/hour before taxes*, so I figure those 20 hours of invitation assembly alone were worth $200+.

Never mind, let's not keep going with those calculations. They're too depressing.

Anyway, what I was saying was that I put a lot of time and energy into these babies, and if I hadn't been totally committed to it and enjoyed doing it, it would totally not have been worth it. But I'm really happy that I created something that was exactly as I envisioned it, and I didn't mind doing it myself this once. After all, I won't be making wedding invitations for myself ever again, and not for anyone else anytime soon. So I won't attempt to calculate what that time could have been worth.

I hope you've enjoyed this little recap of my most time-consuming wedding project to date. Don't worry, there are lots of other projects in the works! I have all of April and May off to do nothing but plan, plan, plan!

*$45,000/year, with 3 weeks of vacation plus 1 week off for either Christmas or New Year's, working 80 hours/week. And let's hope it's only 80 hours/week.

Crafting the Invitations -- Assembly

2009-04-03T08:03:00.000-04:00

Finally, it was time to assemble everything.

To refresh your memory, here is our invitation suite:

I simply stacked the RSVP card on top of the invitation, and stacked the insert card on top of that. In between the invitation and RSVP card, I slipped our rehearsal dinner invitation.

The RSVP card is a postcard, so I made sure to pre-stamp it:

The front of the card asks our guests to RSVP for both the wedding and the rehearsal dinner, and asks where they're staying and what day they're arriving. That way, I'll be able to make sure I get an out of town bag to everyone. We're having a buffet, so no food choices were necessary.

I used leftover strips of the purple Unryu Thread Paper to create 1/2" wide belly bands to hold everything together. I didn't want to use an actual inner envelope for most of the reasons already discussed in previous posts -- extra money to buy them, extra wasted paper being thrown away, and added weight threatening the 1 oz limit. Instead, I put the inner envelope information on a small piece of cardstock.

The cardstock actually came from these blank greeting cards I found at Archivers while looking for other stuff. They were in the cheap bin, and were a great find! They're embossed in a stripe pattern, so they added a little bit of architectural interest to the layout, rather than just a boring piece of flat cardstock:
I only ended up using a handful of them, too. First I cut each card in between those stripes to create strips 5.5" x ~1". Then I trimmed off the unembossed ends, leaving me with a 5" strip. I cut that strip into either two 2.5" pieces or a 2" and 3" piece, depending on how much I needed to write on each one. I wrote the guests' names on using a purple roller ball pen, and it went on top of the belly band. The belly band was attached with a Zot and the "inner envelope" cardstock was attached to the belly band with another Zot.

The completed assembly:

I'm a little wishy-washy about the size of the belly band. I think, if I were to do it again, I would make them at least 5/8" wide, rather than 1/2" wide. I've seen some examples of really fat belly bands, too, and while that might look nice, I really didn't want to waste too much paper. In the end, I'm satisfied with it.

Into the envelope it goes!
The repositionable sticky tape I had used to attach the liner to the envelope ended up remaining fairly repositionable after a few days, and that made me nervous. So at the last minute, I secured everything down with a permanent Glue Dot, one of the very flat ones, so everything remained nice and smooth.

And then all that's left is to seal and stamp it!
We went with the Chinese New Year stamps. Neither of us is an ox, but it's a small nod to my heritage.

In the end, they weighed 7/8 oz each, perfect for a single first class stamp!

Crafting the Invitations -- Rehearsal Dinner Invitation

2009-04-02T08:26:00.000-04:00

I know I've alluded to this a bunch of times but never got around to actually talking about it directly. For our rehearsal dinner, we're going to a Louisville Bats game! We knew from the start that we wanted a rehearsal dinner we could invite everyone to, since 90% of our guests are from out of town. That pretty much crossed fancy sit-down dinners off the list. I was excited by the possibility of having a big BBQ picnic at Cherokee Park, but then we came up with an even better idea -- going to a baseball game!

Everything worked out perfectly; the Bats (the triple-A affiliates of the Cincinnati Reds) are at home on our wedding weekend, and their Saturday night game starts at 6:15. We'll have a catered meal on the patio deck in right field, and then watch the game. Casual, laid-back, and a great group activity. Plus, since it's a minor league team, it's not too harsh on the wallet, either.

I wanted to make the rehearsal dinner invitation a little bit more laid-back and fun, to match the event. I thought about using catchy/witty wording, but nothing really came to me. I turned to the Weddingbee boards and asked for help, and an awesome girl named Melissa sent me the baseball ticket invitation her sister used for her engagement party:

Using that as inspiration, I turned to Google to look for pictures of other baseball tickets. I eventually came up with this:

Once I found THAT, it was just a few clicks and some minor frustration to produce this:
I'm still pretty impressed with myself over this one. It took a lot of photoshopping (using Paint.net) and layout trials and errors (using Open Office Draw), but it finally came together. The picture is from our engagement shoot in fall 2007. They're 7x3" and I laid them out three to a page and had Eric from The Reliable Printing Company print them out on the same cardstock we used for the invitation suite.

Even if you wanted a step-by-step for making something like this, I couldn't show it to you, because I just did everything a little bit at a time, with very few saves in between, until I had the final product. Conceptually it's not that hard, though: I made a single background of the ticket outline, bar code, and yellow banner, along with our faded engagement shot. Then I imported that into Draw and added the text for the seating assignment, Slugger Field address, the "MVP Holly and Eric" bit, the date/time info and the instructions at the bottom. The banner was a little bit frustrating to make, but I just played around with word art in various programs until I found something that wasn't too offensive.

I'm really happy with how this invitation came out, and I'm really looking forward to our rehearsal dinner! The only thing I'm kind of sad about is that I won't get to wear as fancy of a dress to the game as I might have to a sit-down dinner. And I have an awesome dress hanging in my closet I have never had the chance to wear. Oh well. I've also got plenty of more casual dresses that will look great, too.

Crafting the Invitations -- Envelopes

2009-04-01T07:17:00.000-04:00

Once the invitations were all printed, it was time to get the envelopes ready. I ordered samples from EnvelopesExpress.com, ActionEnvelope.com, and checked out every other envelope website I could find via Google. I also looked at the envelopes stocked at Arvey, my local awesome paper supply store. One of the frustrating things was that a lot of places only sold envelopes in large quantities, like hundreds, and I only needed about 125. In the end, we went with ActionEnvelope's 70-lb Bright White A8 envelopes, sold in packs of 50. They also have an 80-lb envelope, which feels nicer when compared to the 70-lb one, but I really wanted to stay within the 1-oz mark for weight, so I went with the lighter one. In the end, you can't tell.

The envelopes were the most expensive per-envelope that I looked at, but we ended up using them because they were the closest brightness to the cardstock we were using and they were the only ones I could buy in a pack of 150, rather than 200. If I had gone with a pack of 200, I guess I could have tried to resell them, but I feel better not having to rely on that. Sometimes it's worth it to spend a little more if it means you'll have less waste in the end.

I laid out our return address to print on the back flap (in the same purple color, of course), bought a new color ink cartridge for my very old HP Deskjet 810C (I got it in 1999!), and started printing. I had to play around with things a little bit, but it turned out if I printed them in batches of no more than 6, the printer stayed happy. So one afternoon I fed envelopes through the printer while catching up on my Google Reader reading.

The printer had a brain fart and only printed this much on one of the envelopes. Poor thing, I hope it lasts another two months through the rest of my wedding printing projects...

Running the envelopes through the printer made them all a little wrinkly, but I figured no one would notice by the time they got delivered and had all other sorts of marks and blemishes from the postal service:
Wrinkly, crinkly.

And here's the final product:

Next up was addressing and lining. I read a trick somewhere, at some point during the last almost two years of planning, that it's easier to address the envelopes first, and line them second. This allows you to use a wonderful tracing trick for guide lines. What you do is you take a piece of cardstock and draw straight lines across it. Place it inside the envelope, lines facing out, and you have guide lines to help you write straight!

Now, at what intervals should I make the guides? This is just one example of why I'm so happy I've saved every wedding invitation (and accompanying paper paraphernalia) I've ever received. I was able to pull out all the outer envelopes and do a little bit of measuring, and it turns out that 1/2" increments are pretty standard and look good:
Left to right: Bridesmaid Karen's invitation (2004), bridesmaid Paula's invitation (2007), bridesmaid Jamie's invitation (2008), longtime friend and penpal from the 3rd grade Becky's invitation (2007). Other invitations I've amassed over the last five years not shown.

Seriously, I'm so glad I save all of these, because I was constantly able to go back and look at what other people's invitations looked like, to make sure I wasn't doing anything weird.

Here's my guide card:

Using the guide card, I was easily able to address all my envelopes using my handy dandy purple calligraphy marker. I know I've talked about my handwriting before, but I can't resist showing it off just a little bit more...

Once all the envelopes were addressed, I lined them. I used Unryu Thread Paper in aubergine from PaperMojo.com. It's a gorgeous deep purple color, and has a very organic look to it.

First, I cut all the sheets to the right size:

Next, I lined the envelopes. Since my envelopes have square flaps, it was really easy to cut the liners, because I just made them all rectangular. No cutting rounded/pointed flaps out! I adhered the liners with repositionable sticky tape. I initially was going to use Glue Dots or Zots, but I found a roll of sticko brand refill tape at Archiver's for 75% off! It was a little annoying to work with an open roll of very sticky tape, but it was worth it. I wanted to use repositionable tape so that I could move the liners in case I made any mistakes, and I'm glad I did, because there were a few mistakes. At that point, with the envelopes already addressed, I really didn't want to have to start completely over if I screwed up the liner.

Put the tape down, position the liner:

Peel the tape backing up, attach the liner:

And voila!

Beautiful purple-lined envelopes, ready for stuffing!

Crafting the Invitations -- Layout

2009-03-30T07:29:00.000-04:00

While I was waiting for my graphics to be professionalized (yes, I just made up a word), I laid out my invitation using Open Office Draw (another free program, kind of like Power Point, but with a few other features that make it more friendly for print layout).

One principle I had when starting to design my invitation suite was to waste as little paper as possible, and, envisioning that I might be the one using a paper cutter, to try to limit the number of cuts needed. Therefore, I tried to lay out all three pieces of the suite on a single piece of 8.5x11" paper.

Now, if you're going to design your invitations, you need to know ahead of time what the various standard sizes are. You can cut paper to any size you want, but unless you also want to spend time making custom envelopes, it's better to stick with sizes that are widely available.

About a year ago, when I first got into my invitation planning craze, I looked up all the various sizes, and here's what I found (table by me, in case you want to borrow it):

I did some paper-and-pencil layouts on regular paper, and came up with a few different ideas:
1. Make an A8 invitation, a 4 1/4 x 6" RSVP card, and a 2 1/2 x 4 1/4" insert. Put in an A8 inner envelope and use an A9 outer envelope.
2. Make an A9 invitation, a 4 1/4 x 6" RSVP card, and a 2 1/2 x 4 1/4" insert. Wrap in vellum to create a pseduo inner envelope or make a belly band to hold the suite together, and use an A9 envelope.

I initially was staying away from the A10 size because I couldn't find too many online retailers who carried A10 envelopes. However, A7 and A8 are very easy to find, and there's a decent selection of A9s out there, too.

I ended up combining the two ideas, and made an A8 invitation, an RSVP card that was 5 3/8 x 4 1/2", and an insert card that was 5 3/8 x 3 5/8". When I laid this out in landscape format, it left a strip 11" wide by 5/8" tall. Figuring I might be able to use that strip of scrap for something or other, in the spirit of not wasting paper, I colored it purple. Here is the final layout:

Here you can see the cutting guide lines (in the final version, I didn't print those lines). The size of the invitation is measured from the very left edge of the page, but I made sure to keep all the graphics within the printable area (on the professional printers, 1/4" margins are fine). You can also see that the purple strip runs the full width of the page, but the RSVP card and insert card stop 1/4" from the edge. I decided to make all of the invitation pieces the same width, 5 3/8", and that left a 1/4" edge on the right side of the page to be cut off.

You might realize that the purple strip, in the end, wouldn't bleed to the edge, but would instead have a 1/4" inch margin inserted by the printer. I realized this, too, and wasn't worried about it. It's scrap, and if I could use it, that's great, but I wasn't going to stress about it, either.

Another key place I went to do research was the post office website, www.usps.com. This page tells you all about the requirements for first-class mail, and this was important to me for two reasons:
1. I wanted the invitation to cost just a single first class stamp to mail, because I'm frugal. Rectangular-shaped and less than 1 oz in weight are the keys for this to work (squares automatically cost more postage, no matter how small they are!).
2. I wanted the RSVP card to be a postcard, because a reply envelope would require extra paper that would add to overall weight and threaten my 1 oz limit, would cost more to buy, would add to unnecessary paper wastage when it was thrown away, and would require a 42-cent stamp to return to us, rather than a 27-cent postcard stamp. It was a combination of being green and frugal.

So I made sure our RSVP card fell within regulation postcard sizes (3.5 x 5" to 4.25 x 6") right off the bat. I didn't have any specific requirements for the insert card, but making it the same width as the other two, but slightly shorter, made them look nice when stacked.

Eric and I hashed out the invitation wording together, and I got our fonts free from dafont.com. They're the same ones we used on our save the dates, Renaissance and ParmaPetit. The insert card references our wedding website for key information, and the RSVP card is a double RSVP, for both the wedding and the rehearsal dinner. We included the rehearsal dinner invitation in the same mailing, and I'll detail that for you in another post.

Now I have to say one final word about the layout and printing. In my mind, I thought this layout was great, and maximized my paper use. In the end, that all went down the drain. When I took the final file (once I had the final graphics files from Sue) to Eric at The Reliable Printing Company, he, because he's really really good at what he does, was able to notice some minor flaws in my layout. What they were, I'm not really sure, and whether they would really have caused a problem, I'll never know.

What he ended up doing, though, was altering the layout into three different files: one for the invitation, one for the RSVP card, and one for the insert card. He laid out two invitations per page and printed 50 of them (for 100 invitations), then laid out 4 RSVP cards and 4 insert cards per page and printed 25 each of them for a total of 100 invitation sets. This made it easier for his cutting man to cut, I think. The purple strip ended up being totally wasted as a result, but I harkened back to Rule #1 of DIY, "Let go of your OCD and accept what you cannot control. Your sanity is worth more than you think," and let the issue go. We ended up using the same number of pieces of paper as we would have with my original layout, and I really don't know what I would have done with that scrap, anyway. Plus, they do recycle at their shop, so it's not like it went to total waste.

We printed the invitations on Hammermill Color Copy Cover, 100 lb (271 g/m2), 100 brightness, at Eric-the-printer's recommendation. I bought a package of 8.5x11" paper at Arvey for $20, and Eric knocked $20 off my printing charge for providing my own cardstock, so I am left with 150 pieces of cardstock for free, essentially. Good deal!

We went with digital color printing, as opposed to anything fancy like thermography or letterpress for two reasons: time and money. While I would love to get letterpressed invitations, it's just not in our budget, and probably one of the less justifiable things we could spend money on with regards to the wedding. I'd much rather put money into food, drinks, and good music, rather than the paper everyone is going to throw out, to be honest.

So there you have it! The layout and printing of the invitations.

Crafting the Invitations -- Graphics

2009-03-28T16:24:00.001-04:00

So I sent the invitations Wednesday morning, and on Thursday afternoon I had heard from the first people in the Louisville area that they had received them, and on Friday afternoon I got back the first RSVP card (it was a yes)! Quick work, USPS! I know my bridesmaids in Baltimore and Pittsburgh have gotten them, too, so I guess I can start the recap for you.

I told you about how I took this piece of scrapbook paper and sent it off to someone to turn into digital images:

Here's what happened after that.

First, I received this image from the designer who let me down, which I really liked:
By playing around in Paint.net (Free program! Similar to Photoshop, but a little dumbed down, as opposed to Inkscape, another free program I initially tried to use that was as complex as Photoshop), I was able to make a couple related images:

Notice that I also changed the colors around a bit; I wanted a brighter green, and more of an eggplant purple rather than a bluish purple.

Trying to find the right color was quite a project in itself, but through some Googling, I found this great site, Colour Lovers. OTHER people find pretty colors, upload them, and tell you the RGB numbers needed to recreate them! I was able to find a bunch of colors in the range I was looking for, and make a whole bunch of samples in those colors to test print:

The one I settled on was the second one on the top row. That became my new theme eggplant color.

*Disclaimer: In the end, the purple color didn't come out exactly right, but since the images were sent off to Sue, my awesome graphic designer, before I printed them, there are a couple sources of possible error. The most obvious one is that RGB colors are meant for computer viewing, while CMYK colors are meant for print. Sue knew that I had ghetto-checked my RGB color in print, but something still might have happened on her end of things. It's also possible that my printer's printer read the color differently. Who knows. In the end, the purple on the berries on the final printed product is a little more in the bluish range rather than the reddish, but Rule #1 of DIY is "Let go of your OCD and accept what you cannot control. Your sanity is worth more than you think."

In any case, I sent my three re-colored images off to Sue to make them nice and smooth and hi-resolution and suitable for printing.

Wedding band

2009-03-27T13:37:00.002-04:00

One down, one to go.

I mentioned that the price of palladium had suddenly become very interesting to me. That's because I requested that Philip Haas, the jeweler Eric used to make my engagement ring, make me a wedding band in palladium to match, and I was afraid that the custom piece might be pricey.

I started my wedding band search at the mall jewelry stores, and one day this past summer, I found one I really really liked, at Zales:
It was a 1/4-carat TDW (total diamond weight) shared prong white gold band. It was really nice. The diamond quality was G/H/I (mixed; no guarantee) color, I1 clarity. Since I found it at a Zales in New Jersey, I took down the item number to save.

In January, I bought it at my local mall, and brought it to Philip.

Yeah, I'm sneaky like that. I made sure there was a good return policy (full refund within 30 days, store credit within 60 days), first, just in case. The Zales ring was much too big (I avoided getting it sized right away like they wanted me to by making up a story about needing to show it to my mom, who was only visiting for a couple of days...), and had 13 diamonds. Philip and I decided to shrink that down to 11 diamonds to accommodate my finger size in a nice-looking way (I have a size 4.5 ring finger!). I placed my order, and a few weeks later, I had this:

Sorry the detail isn't that great; my camera doesn't have a very good macro lens. In any case, it's perfect! Palladium, to match my engagement ring, with 11 diamonds totaling .21 carats (the diamonds are the same size each as the Zales ring, but there are only 11 instead of 13), of G color and VS2 clarity. Exactly what I wanted, made especially for me. And the best part? It was only $80 more than the Zales ring! (I know that palladium is less expensive now than white gold, but my stones are of a significantly better quality, to more closely match my solitaire, so I think it evens out... plus the fact that it was custom work, of course!) I returned the Zales ring successfully, and my devious plan worked.

Here are the two rings together:

They aren't an identical matched set, but I like it that way. Each can stand on its own, but they work very well together at the same time.

Now we just need a ring for Eric. We'd go back to Philip Haas for that one, too, but since Eric won't be around here again until two days before the wedding, I'm not sure that's going to work out logistically, so we'll be shopping around in Philly/NJ, probably. Maybe a mall jewelry store ring would be fine. Plus, I just talked to the husband of a classmate of mine who recently accidentally lost his wedding ring, and he says that a guy's first ring should be like his first car: It shouldn't be a Mercedes. He had bought his ring at Kohl's, just in case, which turned out to be a good idea. I'm not sure what I think of that theory; I'm willing to give Eric more credit than that :)

Cake!

2009-03-26T09:42:00.000-04:00

So we finally booked a baker! I know I told you I tasted some cake a couple months ago, and then I let the issue drop.

At the end of January, we went to visit Eric's sister and her new baby. It coincidentally was also Eric's sister's husband's 30th birthday that weekend. I decided it would be good to have some cake, so I set up a couple tastings to pick up and bring with me.

One was from Adrienne's, and they asked me to pick out six flavors to try. I was amazed when we opened the box:

This is the after-we-devoured-cake shot, but I think you can tell that it was six full slices of cake. They were actually all put right next to each other and then iced to look like one complete cake, so I didn't know what to expect! We tried white, lemon, strawberry, red velvet, raspberry, and Italian cream. You can see the 3-0 candles we picked up to celebrate Brian's birthday, too. Free sample cake for someone else's birthday... ghetto, perhaps, but that's how I roll. It was fun to get to taste everything with Paige and Brian, too.

Strawberry was the clear winner, although it is a very shocking pink. After I got back, I set up a consultation with Adrienne (she does her consultations after the taste test, which is awesome), and got pricing and design info. Adrienne is awesome and very friendly, and I'm happy I met with her.

Everything stayed in limbo until Eric came to visit last week for Match Day. I arranged to pick up tastings from 4 bakeries: Plehn's, which I had previously tasted by myself, Bussmann's, Williams, and Adrienne's (for a comparative taste test). There was another tasting but it turned out it would have cost us $20, and I figured there are enough bakeries that will give us free cake that I didn't need to worry about a place that would charge us for a tasting (plus, I already knew their prices and they were the most expensive yet!).

Here's what we collected and assembled at the apartment:

Plehn's, yellow and strawberry:
Since they knew I was picking up the tasting to taste later, they included their icing in a little waxed paper cone for us to dispense ourselves. That's my icing handiwork pictured. I've always wanted to do that!

Williams Bakery, yellow iced with chocolate and chocolate iced with white/yellow:

Bussmann's, 2 chocolate cupcakes and I think 4 yellow cupcakes. The fact that there are 4 made me think that maybe I actually ordered 2 yellow and 2 something else (lemon?), but I didn't taste any difference, so I'm not sure what happened there...

And Adrienne's, where we picked up a slice of strawberry cake. I was totally going to pay for it, since it was a repeat tasting, but they gave it to us for free!

And here is the aftermath:
From left to right: Plehn's, Williams on the plate, Adrienne's pink strawberry, and Bussman's cupcakes in the box.

The clear winner was Adrienne's. it was moist and flavorful, absolutely scrumptious. Plehn's was not too far behind in second -- very moist and light cake, but their strawberry wasn't as flavorful as Adrienne's. Adrienne's was also the most expensive, but we're so happy with the cake that it's totally worth it. (It's still within our original budget.)

So it's going to be a three-tiered strawberry cake with whipped cream filling, iced white and decorated with fresh flowers. I'm really excited for wedding cake now!

Invitations are in the mail!

2009-03-25T08:25:00.002-04:00

And the woman behind the counter even promised to hand cancel them, even though she told me, in her opinion, they looked better if they went through the machine. She said she'd do them throughout the day, so I guess we'll see what people end up getting.

I'm so happy to have these out of my hair! As soon as I get word that people have started receiving them, I'll give you the whole recap.

A rhetorical question

2009-03-22T00:58:00.003-04:00

What is the utility of having 7 -- SEVEN!!! -- bridesmaids when none of them live anywhere near you, thereby making it impossible for you to command them to help you stuff invitations into envelopes?

Heck, I'd even accept the help of groomsmen. Or a groom.

The envelopes all have return addresses printed on them.
They have all been lined.
Their destination addresses have all been calligraphed.

Now, it's just the tedious process of assembling the contents, making sure the right RSVP cards go in the right envelopes, and glue dotting everything together.

I did 25 in 2.5 hours tonight. Not good. Roughly 75 more to go.

Helpers would be good. Not that, you know, that's why I asked those seven girls to be my bridesmaids or anything.

Also, the interest in stuffing envelopes wanes when you have just found out that you're moving to Philadelphia in less than three months and all of a sudden need to figure out how to buy a house. I would much rather be sorting through mortgage loan offers and perusing sale ads on Craigslist.

The one good thing about invitation assembly? I've been watching all the ER episodes I've been DVR-ing all season, and I'm very close to being caught up. I don't even want to think about how many hours that means this project has been taking me.

Invitations are done!

2009-03-11T18:39:00.004-04:00

When I first started reading crafty, DIY-oriented wedding blogs 19 months ago, the thing that stood out the most to me was brides who designed and/or made their own wedding invitations. What a great way to infuse some of your own personality into the wedding, and besides, I figured that DIY would probably be cheaper than buying pre-made.

I quickly formed an idea of what I wanted, that would fit into our design theme, and kept my eyes out for inspiration. It came in the form of a piece of scrapbook paper at Hobby Lobby:

Whimsical, quirky, but still pretty. Perfect! Now, how to take one of those vines from a piece of scrapbook paper to a digital file I could manipulate? (This is a photo I took of the piece of paper.)

I figured I could probably scan it into the computer, but I don't have a scanner. Since I was doing all of this brainstorming months ago, I set this project on the back burner and focused on other things. At some point, I could always use the scanner at my parents' house, although I wasn't really sure when I would be able to do that. However, this past August, I ran across a classified ad on Weddingbee from someone offering to do invitation graphic design for very reasonable prices. Perfect! I emailed Laura, got some info, and sent her off a package in the mail with some of the scrapbook paper, a piece of fabric from bridesmaid dress shopping (so she knew what the right purple color was), and instructions detailing my vision. We had steady email contact over the next three months, save for one moment when I had to send her an email asking for an update, because I hadn't heard from her in some time. She responded immediately, said she had sent me my proofs two weeks earlier, but re-attached them. I know I had never received an earlier email (I even checked my spam), but I had the proofs, and they were great, and it was no big deal. I gave her my feedback and was eagerly awaiting the final design. That was mid-November.

Over the next two months, I sent multiple emails to see how things were going and never got a response. I finally resorted to Googling the girl to see if I could find some other contact info, and was able to call her in early January. After that, there was a series of emails that involved me giving her feedback, her promising me new proofs, and then falling off the face of the earth again. Finally, I got sick of it. My deadline to send invitations was quickly approaching, and I still had nothing! I laid out my own invitation suite using Paint.net and OpenOffice Draw, and everything was great except for the low-res graphics I had pulled from my proofs. Low-res won't cut it for the final invitations, but I didn't know how to turn low-res into the nice high-res I would need for printing. By this time, it was late February.

So I turned to Etsy, the place for all things crafty and creative, and placed my first Alchemy bid. It was accepted by about a billion people within a matter of hours, and I found someone I thought would be good to work with. Then followed some back-and-forth conversations between me and Sue, my Etsy graphic designer, and some trips back and forth to Kinkos to print out every new image (my old inkjet is first of all out of colored ink, and second of all very old and not of good enough quality), but within a week I had my final product. After I knew I had what I wanted, I sent Laura an email firing her, and I haven't heard anything back.

Next, I needed a printer. If you know anything about wedding invitation printing, you know that one of the crazes is for letterpress, a totally luxurious printing style in which plates of your design are created and inked, and then pressed into the paper, creating indentations. It's lovely, and I would love to have it, but I also know that most people throw invitations in the trash, so there is no reason to waste all of that money on something so ephemeral. How much money? We're talking at least $3/invitation, and it quickly goes up from there.

Another popular option in wedding invitations is thermography, in which a special powder is placed on the paper, then heated and melted and sucked upward, creating a raised effect. If you order "wedding invitations" from those big books found at most stationery stores, this is usually what you get. It's less expensive than letterpress by far, but still not justifiable in my book.

Kinkos, though, wasn't my favorite option, because they don't always take the time to look after the details that I wanted. So I turned to my new favorite paper supply store, Arvey, and asked their staff if they could recommend a printer. And they could! Last Friday I drove to all three of their recommended printers (I have Fridays off this month; how great is that?) and found a great one. A locally owned business, run by a great guy, and willing to work with me on price if I used my own cardstock. Since I need cardstock for other wedding projects, I didn't mind buying it in bulk to use some for the invitations, especially since it saved me money!

Yesterday after work I stopped at The Reliable Printing Company to drop off my cardstock (having already emailed my files to Eric, the owner), and he dropped everything and printed everything for me right then and there. It took about an hour to go through all the files, make sure they were laid out correctly, printed correctly, and cut correctly, but it was great to be able to be at his side the whole time, making sure that everything was still the way I wanted it to be. Their attention to detail was amazing! It wasn't even until I left, completed invitations in hand, that I realized he had stayed open an extra 45 minutes helping me. What service!

Meanwhile, I had placed internet orders for envelopes (months ago I had ordered some samples, so I knew exactly what I wanted) and paper to line the envelopes with, and lo and behold, everything arrived by today! So now I have everything I need to put together the invitations, and I am happily going to be working on that over the next few days. When Eric comes to visit next weekend, our goal is to get the invitations fully completed, envelopes stamped and addressed, and ready to mail.

So what does the final product look like? How did my original inspiration get translated into a wedding invitation that I love? You'll just have to wait, because I'm not going to share until after they're sent out -- another week and a half, at least!

Vendors I love:
SuBeeDesigns on Etsy, Sue Brown on the Internet
Arvey Paper and Office Products, for a huge paper selection.
Eric Hobaugh, CEO of The Reliable Printing Company, for excellent, personal printing services (including letterpress!)
ActionEnvelope.com, for envelopes
PaperMojo.com, for a great paper selection (I'm using their papers as envelope liners), and how can I resist a store with the same name as one of our kitties?

Stamp Saga

2009-02-17T23:37:00.004-05:00

If you were planning a wedding at this time last year, you were aware of the dismay and outrage that occurred when the Postal Service announced it was raising the price of stamps by a penny. Brides who had already bought the stamps for their invitations were saddened that they might need to deface their envelopes with an extra 1-cent stamp. I made a mental note to not get upset if that were to happen to me this year.

Last year, the post office had a great stamp, the "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" stamp. It was printed in honor of the 100-year anniversary of the creation of the popular song.

As soon as I saw it, I knew it would be great for our invitations (I don't think you know yet the reason why, but trust me on this, and I'll explain more in a later post). But I also knew it would be silly to stockpile the stamps too early, in case postage rates went up again this year. And they were still available as of December.

So a few weeks ago, I was hashing out little wedding details with Eric and I brought up stamps for the invitations. We decided we really liked these baseball stamps, and I knew that it was around this time last year that the rate hike was announced, but we decided that we liked these stamps enough to use them even if we had to add a 1-center to the envelope as well. (And if memory served, I knew that the rate hike last year was announced around February, and it went into effect around May, so it might affect us, depending on our RSVP deadline.)

So that weekend I stopped by the post office for something else, and asked if they had any of the stamps. It turned out they were out of them, and when I asked if they anticipated getting more, I was told it was doubtful, because the clerk suspected a new rate hike would be announced soon. And sure enough, last week it was.

(The rate hike won't go into effect until May 11, and our RSVP deadline is probably going to be May 1, so we will be dealing with current/old stamp rates, not the new ones, so it turns out we need stamps now.)

Today I called around to a bunch of post offices, but the answer was always the same: "We ran out of those stamps a while ago." Boo. One helpful woman told me to call 1-800-STAMP-24, to see if I could order them that way. And when I called, I was told that the post office had discontinued those stamps and they had run out of them on Friday. FOUR days ago. ARGH! I just missed it!

On ebay, the stamps are selling for $1 a pop or $11-14 for a sheet of 20. I refuse to pay a markup for them on principle, so we're left with whatever stamps are currently available.

So, what will it be? Abraham Lincoln, because he was a great president who was born in Kentucky? Edgar Allen Poe, because he was from Baltimore and Eric and I have ties to Maryland? Chinese New Year for my heritage, even though neither of us is an ox? Alaska because we went on an Alaskan cruise two years ago? The Great Lakes Dunes sheet is pretty and has fun wildlife pictures, even though we don't live in the Great Lakes region. The Forever stamp works because of our ties to Philly, but it's kind of boring for a wedding stamp, I think (although I'll definitely be stocking up on these before May 11!). There's this Celebrate! stamp, which is kind of fun. Not our colors, but definitely the right sentiment:
There's always the wedding heart and the love heart, but they're so... cliche and overdone. (Now watch, that's what we're going to end up using and you'll laugh at me for being so snobby.) There are 20 state stamps in the "flags of our nation" series (well, 19 states and the U.S. flag), but they've only gotten up to Kansas so far. If they come out with the next series that includes Kentucky in the next month or so, then that would be great, but even so, I would be compelled to buy 10 times too many stamps just to get all the Kentucky ones.

Those baseball stamps were so darn perfect! And, just to let you know, I've always been the kind of person who buys special stamps to convey my likes or loyalties. I always love the Disney stamps (but I concede that Eric probably wouldn't want them for wedding invitations), or flowers. So I like my stamps to have a message attached to them, and I would like to be able to do that for our wedding invitations, too.

And never fear; our invitation suite is going to fall under 1 ounce to qualify for regular first-class postage, come hell or high water! When you're having a budget-friendly wedding, you can't let an extra $17 go to the postal service because you didn't realize square invitations or heavy ones cost extra. (Sorry, postal service, but I can't afford to keep you afloat with my money.)

So what should we do? I know in the grand scheme of things, this is really, really minor.

"Seriously, in the huge sweep of things, this stuff doesn't matter."
"What he's going to say next is, there are people starving in the Sudan."
"Well there are. ... All I'm asking for is a normal amount of perspective."

Ten points to you if you can name the movie that quote is from. And then I'll stop worrying about stamps :)

Need a venue?

2009-02-08T20:09:00.005-05:00

Don't worry, we're not getting rid of ours. But there's a new one in town, and it looks like it would be great!

A couple weeks ago, when it was an unseasonable 60 degrees one day (that was before the killer snow/ice storm that blanketed Kentucky a week and a half ago), I took advantage of the nice weather to walk downtown to the Kentucky Center to see if I could score raffle tickets to Wicked. (I didn't.) And on the walk back home, I happened to walk past this building and noticed a sign up saying it was available for event rentals. So, because I'm a venue junkie, I had to check it out.

It's called The Gillespie, and it's on downtown West Market Street, just a few blocks from Glassworks, but more in the center of the downtown district. It was formerly a bank, and it has gorgeous Art Deco architecture and styling.

I love old buildings. All pictures from The Gillespie's website.

Even better? Although they have suggested vendors, their in-house vendor is one I've worked with before for school events and is almost always the most economical, while delivering great food and service. And on top of that, you don't even have to use The Gillespie's suggested vendors -- they'll let you work with whoever (whomever?) you want! Exactly the kind of venue I like working with.

The only downside? Their prices are slightly higher than at Glassworks, and they seem to be taking advantage of the Sunday-weddings-are-cheaper trend by giving a big discount to Sunday daytime weddings and only a slight discount to Sunday evening weddings (compared to Friday or Saturday night).

But still, go check out the pictures on their website. Look, you can take pictures in front of the old vault!

This would definitely be on my list of venues if I were looking again. Although, I'm really glad that part of the planning process is far behind us!

Flower girl dresses

2009-02-04T19:53:00.008-05:00

I always had it in the back of my mind that it would be more fun to dress our flower girl, Lea, in a pretty purple dress, rather than dressing her like a mini-bride in white. And even if I did dress her in white, I wanted something age-appropriate, rather than a satin ball gown. I mean, really, what 2-year-old needs to be wearing a white satin ball gown? Plus, you know, those dresses that are "meant" for flower girls are pretty darn expensive! At least if I tell one of my bridesmaids, "You can totally wear it again!" (channeling 27 Dresses), it's kind of sort of true. But between appropriate occasions and rapid growth, when will a 2-year-old wear a white satin ball gown again?

So my frugal (read: cheapskate) self also figured I could take advantage of our long engagement by trolling Easter dress sales. I kept an eye out last year, but the shopping began in earnest this year. A couple of weeks ago, to be exact.

It all started when Lea gained a little sister on January 22, Susanna:

So one day a couple weeks ago I headed off for Target to look for new baby presents. (I got Susanna this adorable sheep-themed set, and a couple other things.) And wandering through the baby section led me gradually to the toddler section, and then to the party dresses, where I found this:
It's a little more purple than it looks in the picture, so I bought it. And that night, I checked out the websites of a few department stores, like Macy's and JCPenney. And on the JCP site, I found this dress:
I couldn't tell how floofy it might be, so a few days later I headed out to JCPenney to see it for myself. It was cute, but more of a dress-up-for-a-nice-normal-day dress than a special occasion one. But there were PLENTY of other dresses to look at, and I did much more than look. Within 15 or 20 minutes, I had grabbed every potential flower girl dress from the rack in a size 3T and wandered over to the infant section, because wouldn't you know it, all of a sudden I needed to dress Susanna as an honorary flower girl, too.

As I plopped 11 dresses on the counter, I have to give the salesgirl credit for not batting an eyelash, but simply asking, "Do you need gift receipts?" And the best part? All the dresses were 20-30% off!

Top left: The cotton eyelet dresses, in toddler and baby versions. Less fancy, but oh-so-cute and adorable.
Top right: The plaid collection, toddler version from Target and baby version from JCP.
Middle left: The polka dot collection. Neither dress had any purple in it, though.
Middle right: A gorgeous green dress with purple flowers on it. Can we say, perfect?
Bottom left: Another gorgeous dress, in white with pink embroidery. If this came about a million sizes larger, it would be my wedding dress.
Bottom right: The purple collection.

Last weekend, Eric and I both traveled to Virginia to visit Paige, Brian, Lea, and Susanna. In addition to the requisite visiting-my-nieces-to-be presents, I brought along the flower girl dress contenders, and everything got settled!

Which do you think were chosen for each girl?

Nah, I won't make you guess.

The green-with-purple-flowers dress was chosen in about 5 seconds by Paige. It's my second favorite of the bunch for Susanna (the first being my dream wedding dress), but since the white-and-pink one doesn't match the wedding colors at all, the purple-and-green one is clearly the best choice.

We narrowed Lea's choices to the purple one (bottom right) and the polka dot one (middle left), then held them both up for her to choose. And guess which one that super-smart girl picked? The purple one!

To check for fit, I put the dress on her over her clothes after she finished her dinner, and she loved it (and it fit!). She was wearing a long-sleeved shirt and pants, so running around in that outfit with a purple fairy dress over it, she totally reminded me of Bo from Signs. So adorable. Oh yeah, and she was running around singing Jingle Bells. A month after Christmas. Don't ask.

So, yay, we have flower girl dresses! The rest are in a bag, waiting to be returned this weekend. And I can't wait to see these two all dressed up in three and a half months (yikes!)!

So, I know I can't be the only cheapskate shopper out there. Who else bought an Easter dress for their flower girl(s)?

Found an officiant!

2009-01-27T16:07:00.001-05:00

Last time, I summarized who we aren't going to have perform our marriage ceremony: not a justice of the peace, not a non-denominational minister, not a Unitarian minister, not an internet-ordained friend, and not a civil celebrant.

Whew! Sounds like we've exhausted all of our choices, right?

Well, there's one that I may have mentioned before, but only in passing: My grandfather.

My grandfather is a retired minister. For pretty much as long as I can remember, he has just been "my grandfather," whom I call Grandpa. I never knew him as a minister, really, other than having him say grace at family dinners and taking us to church on Sundays when my siblings and I visited my grandparents in Florida. Nothing particularly out of the ordinary, I'd say, and nothing that particularly stands out as being ministerial rather than just a regular guy.

When I was 18, one of my cousins got married, and he helped perform her wedding ceremony in Maine. I think Maine might have rules about who was able to do the ceremony, and that is why he shared the responsibility with the minister from her church. Another of my cousins got married before I did as well, but I wasn't able to attend her wedding, so I don't know if he participated in it or not.

I've always thought it would be nice to have my own grandfather marry me, but over the last 10 years I've come to realize some other things that made that decision more difficult to make. One was my grandfather's (my dad's dad) relationship with my mother, which hasn't always been the best. The second was my relationship with religion.

As to the second issue, it turns out that I'm really not religious. If my grandfather weren't the one performing the ceremony, I wouldn't have a religious ceremony at all. To be honest, my favorite thing about churches are the architecture (I LOVE walking around in old cathedrals, like St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna, Notre Dame in Paris, and the Cathedrale des Saints Michel et Gudule in Brussels), the stained glass, the echoes, and the incense at midnight mass. I like the ceremonial nature of church, but not necessarily all of the ideals they stand for. Not really good reasons to go, right?

And, to be really really honest, I'm not only "not really religious," but, in fact, not religious at all. Religion isn't for me, and I'm fine with that; I don't feel conflicted or feel that my life is any less complete by not having religion play a part in it.

How, though, can I reconcile that with the fact that my grandfather, whom I love and would otherwise be ecstatic about performing our wedding ceremony, IS religious? I respect other people's beliefs, if they are not harmful, even if I don't share them, so I would not feel comfortable asking him to perform our ceremony and then saying, "Oh by the way, can you take all the religious stuff out?" (I could ask that of a stranger we've hired for the occasion, but that's a different relationship altogether.) I talked it over many, many times with Eric, and in the end, I was able to come to terms with it in a way that makes sense to us. First and foremost, he is my grandfather, and that is the relationship we are celebrating. I feel lucky that he happens to be able to participate in our wedding in this way, and that's enough to make asking him worth it. And if that means "God" gets thrown in there a couple times, I'm OK with that.

And as for the first issue, that of he and my mom not getting along, I asked her what she thought of it. It turns out she thought it was a wonderful idea to ask him, and said that her disagreements with him have nothing to do with us children. So with her blessing, and my own emotional reconciliation with the idea, I asked him on Christmas, and he said yes!

There was just one other little wrinkle: the legal stuff. I wasn't really sure if he was able to perform weddings in Kentucky, but a check of our County Clerk's website and a follow-up phone call proved otherwise. Here is what the website says:

"Marriages shall be solemnized only by clergy, justices and judges of the Court of Justice; retired justices and judges of the Court of Justice, except those removed for cause or convicted of a felony; county judge/executives; such justices of the peace and fiscal court commissioners as the Governor or the county judge/executive authorizes, and certain religious societies.

There are no residency requirements or licensing requirements applicable to ministers or priests who wish to perform marriages in Kentucky."

I still wasn't sure, but when I called, the person I talked to told me that we are good to go "as long as the minister is in good standing with his church or organization," and that they don't need any proof of said good standing. And it doesn't matter if the minister is retired. And there are no forms for the minister to fill out whatsoever, other than signing the marriage certificate. Doesn't that sound too easy?! I still can't quite believe it. My grandfather, on the other hand, said, "It sounds like Kentucky is like Florida. Which has no rules." So at least I'm not alone in this!

(I'm the type of person who is always looking for loopholes. So I'm now wondering why anyone has to get an actual clergyperson or judge to perform their ceremony at all; why not just any old friend, without the internet ordination? I guess it's just the fear that someday, someone might challenge the marriage in court?)

So now it's on to the planning stages. Grandpa said he welcomed our input for the ceremony design but has always "generally followed the familiar ritual," which sounds so comforting, and exactly the feeling I'm looking for. I'm looking forward to putting together our ceremony with him, and feel so lucky that he will be able to participate in this way.

Show your mettle!

2009-01-26T17:32:00.007-05:00

I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before, but my engagement ring is set in palladium. Prior to receiving it, I hadn't heard of palladium, but Eric really picked a winner: it's in the same metal family as platinum, but less expensive and lighter. See? Palladium (#46) is right above platinum (#78) on the periodic table.

I love the color of white gold and platinum, but I've known that platinum is too heavy for me -- my mom got a new ring in platinum a few years ago, and quickly started complaining about its weight, and one day I tried it on for a while and agreed. And don't say I just need to do finger exercises, either -- that stuff is heavy! (And expensive!) And while I love white gold, I do think it's a pain to have to get it re-rhodium-ized so often. I have a tanzanite ring in white gold whose rhodium is starting to wear off, and I really don't want to bring it in to get it replated, but I do wish it was nice and silvery again. (Actually, for the tanzanite ring, I've decided to let it continue to wear for the time being, because I hear white gold develops a nice in-between color after many years.)

So palladium was the perfect choice that I never knew existed, right? And once I discovered its wonders, I knew I wanted my wedding band to match. (Based on the simple realization that it would be annoying to have two rings that wore out differently, and one that I would have to get replated periodically.)

So today, for reasons I'll reveal later, I stopped in to see the jeweler who made my engagement ring, Philip Haas. Because of what we were discussing, I asked about the relative cost of palladium compared to white gold or platinum, thinking that palladium was more expensive than gold. But Philip told me otherwise: platinum, which hit about $2000/oz a year ago, is now down to $900/oz, and gold is about the same, having risen dramatically in the last year.

So I found some charts, and he's right (not that I doubted him):
(source)

Gold and platinum are about the same, at $900+/oz, while palladium is hanging out at less than $200/oz. Score!

Interested in some historical graphs? Me too!

Gold prices, 2000-present:
When Eric bought my engagement ring, around July or August of 2007, gold was about $650/oz. Now it's at $900/oz! I've seen those commercials about now being a good time to invest in gold, and ads and newspaper articles about people selling their old gold to pawn shops and the like, but I didn't realize what that actually meant. Too bad I don't have any gold fillings to get rid of... I guess the crappy economy drives people to invest in gold. Or something. I don't know, I know hardly anything about money (like most doctors, sigh).

Platinum, 1992-present (sorry, I couldn't customize the graph to be just 2000-present to match):
In July 2007, platinum was about $1300/oz. Then look at how it skyrocketed in late 2007! Then notice how it dropped to 2004 prices. Now's a great time to buy platinum, if you have any spare change to make investments.

And my favorite metal, palladium, 1992-present:
Wow, I wonder what that peak in 1999/2000 was all about. In July 2007, palladium was about $350/oz, compared to almost double for gold, and over triple for platinum. And soon after, it also peaked, along with gold and platinum. Now, it's a lovely sub-$200/oz, perfect for wedding band buying :)

Fascinating stuff, the metal market. And I'm happy knowing that when Philip calls me in a couple of days to tell me something super-secret, I'm going to be satisfied with the price.

Conflict-Free

2009-01-25T01:00:00.000-05:00

Having a conflict-free diamond is important to a lot of people. Before I got proposed to, I had thought a little bit about the issue, but not much, to be honest (I promise I'm not a horrible person!). I have to admit, I don't know much about the details of conflict in the diamond industry, other than:
-DeBeers has a monopoly on the whole gig.
-People get hurt and/or killed in the diamond mining industry, and not in the same way as coal miners.
-Leonardo DiCaprio starred in a movie about it. I didn't see it. I heard it was good.

But essentially, we never really discussed engagement rings, so the topic of the type of stone I might want never came up. I have no idea if Eric ever thought about it or not. (In case you're wondering, he ran his proposed design past my sister Laurel, who approved it. She knows my tastes very well.)

After I got proposed to, I just assumed my diamond was inherently conflicted, since I figured most diamonds were (otherwise, why the big deal over ones that aren't?), and because Eric never mentioned anything about it. I didn't want to bring the topic up, if the answer was going to be that it was conflicted, so I just kind of ignored it. It's not as though I didn't love my ring -- on the contrary, I LOVED it (and still do)! And the diamond is perfect -- a great example of the beauty of the four C's. But every now and then, I felt a tiny pang of guilt.

But guess what! I was just checking out the website of the jeweler where Eric got the ring made, Haas Jewelers,* and amidst the not-so-fine print, was this proclamation:

"We support the Kimberley Process and the system of warranties to ensure diamonds are conflict free. We are members of the American Gem Trade Association and adhere to its Code of Ethics to support fair trade in gemstones."

And I asked Eric if he knew whether the diamond he bought me is conflict-free, and he said, "I can't remember. I think so." Boys.

However, I'll take the jeweler's word over his for this one, which means I don't have to feel (as) guilty any more. In Eric's words, "it is conflict-free, so you can be, too." Whew!

And to celebrate, here is a picture of my ring, taken by me, in the style of Anne Ruthman, and cleaned up for me on Photoshop by Introverted Wife.

*I was checking out the Haas website because I have another jewelry-related project in the works. Hint: it involves the other rings we need to buy!

Finding an officiant

2009-01-24T16:00:00.001-05:00

When you look at the planning timelines suggested by various magazines and websites, booking a ceremony venue is often one of the first things on the list. And with it tends to come booking an officiant, which makes the two tasks all rolled up in one; when you find a venue, you find an officiant.

For us, though, we knew we weren't going to get married in a church (one of our venue criteria was that we could have the ceremony and reception in the same location), and we knew we most likely weren't going to get married by a religious official. There are various reasons for that, the most important being that neither of us is particularly religious. So we've had our ceremony site for over a year, but just got an officiant in the last few weeks.

I've documented our search for an officiant before, here and here, and you, my dear readers, had some good suggestions for us. Hiring one of the Louisville justices of the peace was out, since none of them was right for us. I found the names of a couple of non-denominational ministers on my local Knot board and on the internet, but they charged exorbitant (by our standards) fees. It was suggested numerous times that we have a friend or family member ordained via the internet to perform our marriage ceremony, but to be honest, we couldn't decide who to ask. Why my brother rather than Eric's sister, or my sisters? Why this friend instead of that friend? Everything about it seemed -- to me at least -- to be choosing unfairly, and our wedding is all about being fair.

Actually, one of Eric's best men, Joel, IS an internet-ordained minister. He got ordained back in the dark ages of the internet, because he's a computer geek and he thought it was cool. (Not that it isn't.) He's never performed a ceremony, but when it was brought up by another friend, both Joel and Eric felt instantly unsure that it would be a good idea. Joel was too worried that he would screw up -- a sign of how much he valued his friendship with Eric, I think, which is actually kind of flattering. In any case, the only already-ordained internet minister we had was not going to work out.

One of the women in my Student Affairs office recommended Todd Eklof, a local Unitarian minister who performed the wedding ceremony of a friend's daughter. I did some googling, found him, and immediately liked him. Here's an excerpt from his bio: "He came to Louisville in 1986 to attend Southern Theological Seminary, but soon left after finding it too intellectually and spiritually stifling." Ha! I don't know a whole lot about STS, but from what I do know, I'm not surprised someone would say that.

Upon further research, though, it turned out Todd Eklof wouldn't be a viable option, either. Since 2004, Mr. Eklof has vowed not to perform any marriage ceremonies, because Kentucky is one of the states that bans gay marriage. Here is an excerpt from the sermon he gave explaining his decision: "Marriage has become an institution used to discriminate against a segment of our society and I refuse to participate in it until it has been redeemed."

Wow. How powerful. Even though we really weren't looking for a religious ceremony, this kind of made me want him to marry us even more, but I respect his decision and hope these bans crumble in the years to come.

Reader, future-sister-in-law, bridesmaid, and mother to our flower girl, Paige, suggested that we look into civil celebrants, so we did. From CelebrantUSA.com, I found out that civil celebrants are people who perform ceremonies for a variety of life events, including weddings. I had never heard of a civil celebrant before, but it sounded like the kind of thing we were looking for. There were no celebrants listed for Kentucky, but after sending off a request email, I got back the names of two who worked in Ohio. The first one, who goes by the name Persephone (which, to be honest, freaked me out a little), communicated with me by email, inquired about our budget, and flat-out told me there was no way she could accommodate it. Argh. (Incidentally, part of her price quote included asking how many people were in our wedding party and how many guests there would be; I really don't understand why that factors into things. Any ideas?)

The second, Ricki Huff, set up a phone call with me, and we had a wonderful conversation. She wasn't sure if she was legally able to perform ceremonies in Kentucky, but promised to look into it for me. We really hit it off over the phone, and even though her quote was on the higher end of what we had in mind, I knew it would be money well spent. Something about her voice was just... so... nice and soothing. She actually said something along the same lines, remarking that she normally wouldn't want to travel to Louisville for a wedding, even if she was reimbursed for travel, because it's slightly out of her way. But, she said, she has some old friends in Louisville that she could visit, and there was something about my voice that made her think it would be a nice ceremony to perform. What a nice compliment, right?

In any case, she would have been a wonderful officiant to perform our ceremony, but we ended up not hiring her for reasons I'll disclose next time.

So to recap, we considered three justices of the peace, one or two local non-denominational ministers, a Unitarian minister, our best man Joel, and two civil celebrants, but ended up choosing none of them. Who are we going to have marry us, then? Stay tuned to find out!

Christmas Rewind

2009-01-22T16:01:00.010-05:00

Christmas was kind of hectic this year – I was in New Jersey and Pennsylvania for most of my winter break, and I drove down to my parents’ house in Maryland a few days before Christmas. My cousin Ollie, from London, came to see us, on a side trip from New York where he was with some of his friends. We cooked a monstrous Christmas dinner for him, and Ollie was pretty impressed. He said his family doesn’t usually make much of a Christmas feast – he’s a cousin on my mom’s side, so no big turkey dinners factor into his Chinese Christmas celebrations. So we made a turkey (we usually only have turkey on Thanksgiving, but it was a treat for him) and a lamb roast. I can only take credit for the turkey and mashed potatoes – my sister Laurel made the majority of the rest of the meal, including the lamb, a homemade mint and yogurt sauce, and roasted fingerling potatoes. Yum. (I did make the gravy, though – and corrected the salt problem from my Thanksgiving gravy mishap.)

Here's my brother Sean carving the turkey. I bought a small one, since we were also having lamb:
That's a roasted carrot underneath the bottom of the turkey there, that got dragged along from the roasting pan. It's not a shriveled up hot dog.

Anyway, Eric joined us on December 26, after celebrating with both his mom’s and dad’s sides of his family. I wish I could have joined them, but since my parents were back in the States for the first time since March (Mom) and in over a year (Dad), I preferred to be at home. The result, though, was that I missed out on exchanging presents with Eric’s families, and when he brought my presents from his family down to Maryland, I opened them, but it was in the midst of lots of stuff going on at home, and a few days later, I packed everything right back up again. By New Year's, when I got a mysterious 24-hour mini-flu, I had pretty much forgotten about Christmas, and by the time I drove back to Louisville, which involved having a mini car breakdown -- twice -- and dove right back into work, I had completely forgotten about Christmas. Four weeks later and I STILL haven't unpacked; this is the pile of unpacked-but-not-yet-put-away and freshly-laundered-but-not-yet-put-away clothes that is currently blocking my dresser:

And yes, I just had all of Sunday afternoon, Monday afternoon, and all of Tuesday off, and no, I didn’t touch that pile at all. I’ll get around to it… sometime soon. Or else it will miraculously become spring and I can just put it all into storage :)

Anyway, amidst all that mess, I just got around to unpacking the other stuff I brought home, like Christmas presents. And I remembered the coolest present I got this year.

It’s a booklet of Christmas cookie recipes from Eric's family. His cousin Kara put it together for me. On the front she wrote about her fond memories of eating their grandmother’s Christmas cookies, and inside she included her favorites, “some originals and others as close as I could find.”

Inside are cookie recipes from three generations of women in Eric’s family, from his great-grandmother, to his grandmother, to his aunt (Kara’s mom).

The cover (Eric's grandmother was known as "Mom-Mom"):

Butter Cookies, from Eric's great-grandmother:The recipe calls for 1 cup of oleo; I didn't know that was a real thing, other than in crossword puzzles!

Candy Cane Cookies, from Eric's grandmother:

Peanut Butter Blossoms, from Eric's Aunt Joyce:

What a wonderful way to be welcomed into Eric's family! (Not that I haven’t felt welcomed before; on the contrary, I’ve felt like family for many years now!) I’m just sorry I didn’t get to try these recipes out this year. But next Christmas is going to be full of cookie baking, I suspect!

I joked to Eric that it was a shame we didn’t get any presents from our registry for Christmas, but honestly, these kinds of presents are better than any stand mixer, pots, or new camera.* They come from the heart.

Were family secrets -- recipes or otherwise -- shared with you when you joined your fiance's family?

*Seriously, though, we are in dire need of a new camera; the LCD screen on our current one goes in and out, and with it, our ability to take pictures. These took me three tries!

Cake for me!

2009-01-20T21:59:00.003-05:00

I've been putting off looking for a baker for our cake, for a variety of reasons. First, I just knew it was going to be expensive -- I had checked out a couple local bakers who put prices on their website and I just couldn't stomach it. $3+/slice? It just seems ridiculous when the slices are so small and you can buy a whole box of cake mix for less than $2. (I'm aware that $3/slice is pretty standard for wedding cake, at least in this area, and I can only count my blessings that I'm not getting married in New York.)

(It's probably pretty clear, but I'm not a cake snob. My favorite cake is any sort of from-a-box chocolate cake. No icing.)

Plus, since Eric no longer lives here in Louisville, it would be so depressing to go to all of these cake consultations by myself, and just not fair for me to get to taste the cake without him. Delicious, but not fair.

But this weekend, with the calendar ticking away before my eyes, I got serious and started the research end of things. I made a list of as many bakeries as I could find in town, and made a few phone calls. It turns out a lot of bakeries are closed on Mondays, which I didn't know. Anyway, I ended up with an appointment for two days from now for a consultation and tasting, and I just figure that if everything works out OK price-wise and initial tasting-wise, I can always bring Eric back the next time he visits for a confirmatory tasting.

I called another bakery who gave me a price quote over the phone, and I asked about the often-mentioned strategy of having a small display cake and sheet cake to make up the difference. It turns out this is pretty economical, so I was excited and invigorated to do more cake searching.

Then I spent the rest of the evening pulling together pictures of cakes to send to Eric, in order to get his opinions on decorations, before I go to these consultations. It just wouldn't be nice of me to order a big purple cake covered in pink sugar flowers, you know? I'll share my inspiration photos with you later.

But today, when I was out running errands, I drove by one of the more well-known bakeries in town. I decided to pop in and see if they could just give me information -- I wasn't expecting to taste cake or anything like that. And the consultant was nice enough to sit down with me and write up a quote for me on the spot. This bakery doesn't price by the slice; instead, they start with the appropriately sized basic yellow cake with white icing and standard, unfancy decoration, and go up from there for colors, flavors, fillings, etc. But still, their quote was very reasonable, especially with the small-cake-plus-sheet-cake strategy, and I started to warm up to the whole cake thing.

And the best part? She offered to give me some cake to go! "Just a second and I'll ice a couple pieces for you. Just tell me what flavors you'd like."

And so I left Plehn's Bakery with a yellow cupcake and a piece of strawberry cake.

Mmmmm. The yellow cupcake was really really really really good. Light and moist. The icing was pretty standard buttercream -- I don't really like icing, so I scraped it off, but it tasted like good buttercream. I ate it for -- I mean, in addition to -- my lunch, because it was lunchtime. (Seriously, I stopped at Whole Foods and picked my way through the store sampling the freebies, pondered for a long time over the prepared foods bar, and settled on some sushi. After I ate the cupcake.) I had the strawberry cake just a little while ago, eating it in front of the webcam for Eric to see (and envy), and it was pretty good. It wasn't particularly strawberry-y, and it wasn't quite as moist as the yellow, but that might be because it sat in the box all day, I'm not sure. Still very good cake, don't get me wrong.

So, depressing single consultations and unfair solo tastings? Who cares! I'm going to keep tasting as much cake as I can! Who knew there were all these perks to planning a wedding? This might have to become a habit of ours in the years to come.... ;)

Bridesmaid dresses -- the final account

2009-01-17T12:14:00.000-05:00

Well, I hope this is the final account. I feel like I've been stringing everyone along all this time as I (and my bridesmaids) change my/our minds over and over again!

When last we left off, everyone had the choice of a purple or green dress. The acceptable designers/colors were:
-Mori Lee eggplant
-Jim Hjelm eggplant
-Bill Levkoff European eggplant
-Alfred Angelo grape
-After Six, Renaissance satin, eggplant
-Bari Jay, eggplant
-B2, bordeaux
-Da Vinci, aubergine
-After Six, Nu Georgette, aubergine (probably)
-Jim Hjelm moss
-Alfred Angelo clover
-Mori Lee patina, maybe

In the months since, I confirmed that After Six's nu georgette fabric in aubergine was the right color, and determined that no one wanted to wear green. I had thought Paige, Eric's sister, might, as she already had a gorgeous Jim Hjelm dress in "moss," but after it had been altered so much to fit her pregnant belly in October, she didn't think it was salvageable. Plus, she said she didn't really mind getting a new dress and liked the purple color, so I didn't argue. Everyone would be wearing purple.

I mentioned before that Paula, one of my college best friends, already had a dress that we thought might work, and it turns out it does. It's a pretty chiffon, mid-calf-length dress in the exactly right shade -- how fortuitous! I don't have a picture of it, but it's got a halter top, a v-neckline, and some beading embellishment at the bust. Perfect! Maybe something kind of sort of like this:

Minus the sash, and with not as much of an A-line shape, and with sparkly stuff at the neckline. Yeah, kind of sort of like this but really not so much at all :)

In December I was able to go dress shopping with Marjorie and Karen, my two best friends from high school. We went to a bridal salon in New Jersey where the most wonderful thing happened: The salesperson asked what my vision was for the bridesmaid dresses, and when I explained that I didn't care what style, fabric, or designer they were, as long as it was on my list of approved colors, and I knew that the shades might not be exactly the same, she replied: "That's wonderful! How easy!" I was instantly in love.

You see, most places, over the last year or so, have given me the standard spiel that my bridesmaids HAVE to match. If not the exact style, then at least the same designer and fabric. To ensure that the dye lots match, you know. And as much as I've explained that I don't care, no one seems to really believe me or want to agree. So the fact that this woman instantly approved took a huge weight off of my shoulders. Not that I NEEDED her approval, mind you; it just made the experience so much more pleasant.

After a fun morning of trying on dozens of dresses, we went out to lunch, then went back to the store and had Marjorie's mom stop by to give her opinion. Marjorie had it narrowed down to two dresses:

L: James Clifford BH1814 R: Jim Hjelm JH5822

They are very similar, with the ruffle detail at the top. The ruching on the James Clifford dress was really flattering on Marjorie (but that ribbon was random and unnecessary), but the portrait neckline made her shoulders seem very broad. We loved the neckline on the Jim Hjelm dress (awesome cleavage!), but the ruching didn't happen at the most flattering spot. While trying to decide between awesome cleavage and awesome tummy coverage, the aforementioned awesome salesperson came over to see how we were doing. We explained what the problems were, and we brainstormed possible ways to address each dress with alterations. Suddenly, the salesperson exclaimed, "I know!" and ran off to get another dress. She came back with this:

Alfred Angelo 6549, the perfect blend of the two, in satin and chiffon in grape. The portrait neckline isn't as severe as on the James Clifford dress, and even though it doesn't have ruching, the cut of the dress fit Marjorie well. Plus, the fact that the ruffle cascades to the waist really camoflages the tummy area. The ruffle is accompanied by a dangling cord, which none of us really liked -- I believe the word "dingleberry" actually came out while discussing it, but it can be removed easily. Jackpot! Hooray for helpful and nice salespeople!

Karen also made a choice:
Alfred Angelo 6556. Organza and satin in grape, totally adorable!

I emailed back and forth with Paige regarding when she might want to order her dress. You see, she's due any day now, and if we could wait just a few weeks for her to lose at least the weight/girth of having a full-term baby inside of her, getting measured would be a lot simpler. I thought David's Bridal, with it's off-the-rack-if-you-can't-wait-to-order-a-new-one philosophy, might work well, so I checked out their color and style options. After Christmas, Paige stopped in to a store near her to check them out as well, and found one she liked. She'll wait as long as she can to place her order (DB told her the dress only needs a 6-week lead time) for this dress:
David's Bridal D02101, flat taffeta, in plum. I love this dress and want it for myself! The top is good because, as Paige (who will be breast-feeding) said, it "would also allow me to wear a hard-core bra if necessary, which is appealing." Good thinking!

With those decisions made, I told my sisters it was time to place their orders. Shannon had previously decided on Alfred Angelo 6518, and stuck with it:

Here you can see my ghetto photoshopping trying to turn it into a purple dress. I apologize if I've burned your retinas! The satin trim on the dress can be any color, and Shannon chose to match the trim with the nu-georgette body, so the whole dress will be in aubergine.

Laurel had previously chosen Bari Jay 756:

But when she went to order it, she went back to the Bari Jay website one last time and found that a new season's worth of dresses had been posted, and changed her mind to Bari Jay 382:

It's chiffon, in eggplant. I'm not sure what color choices there are for the strap, but I told her I don't care what she does, so we'll see what she ordered.

Finally, my other best friend from college, Jamie, was stuck dress shopping on her own. I did get to go shopping with her and Paula back in September, but I still wish I could have helped her pick out her final choice, if only because she seemed a little more distraught at having to search on her own. She settled on After Six 6513:

"Renaissance" satin, in eggplant. Even though it's pretty damn near to the exact same color as the nu-georgette that Shannon's dress comes in, Jamie's color in "Renaissance satin" is called "eggplant," while Shannon's color in nu-georgette and "Matte satin" is called "aubergine." After Six had to go and make things difficult, but by looking at enough swatches, I figured it all out. This dress has a really long sash that is shown tied in the back here, and was tied in the back when Jamie tried it on back in September, but Marjorie actually tried on the same dress and tied the bow in the front, and it looked really good, so Jamie is thinking about doing that as well.

Here's a composite I made up that shows all 8 of our hot dresses together:

Models standing in for, clockwise from top left: Jamie, Marjorie, me, Paula, Laurel, Karen, Paige, and Shannon. The actual color of purple we're using is somewhere in between all of those, but you get the idea.

After about a year, it's all coming together! I can't wait for all the dresses to come in so I can see how great they look on everyone! What do you think -- will it work?

Sharing the love (and the cost)

2009-01-15T18:19:00.007-05:00

One thing that doesn't come with our venue is chairs for the rooftop ceremony. The venue provides chairs for the reception tables inside, and certainly has more than enough chairs to provide them for the roof, but for some reason, won't allow their chairs to be used outside on the roof. Fair enough. So we knew we needed to rent chairs.

One of Eric's recurring concerns is that it will be very hot on the roof. It's certainly a valid concern; while most people having outdoor weddings simply pray for it not to rain, we have a rain contingency plan (the venue lets us use one of their indoor spaces). What we do not have is protection from a bright, hot sun beating down on us, which is actually what happened at his sister's wedding a couple years ago. (It was a minor annoyance, to be sure, but a couple people got sunburns during the ceremony!)

So when we started talking about chairs, Eric was worried that plastic chairs would feel much hotter than wooden ones, and so he preferred the wooden ones. You know, the ones that look like this:
(source)

These aren't actually wood, by the way; they're usually a composite resin material that just looks like wood. I have to confess, I was never really fully convinced of the hot-chair issue, but if Eric feels strongly about something, it's worth doing, because he doesn't have a super-strong opinion (when it comes to wedding planning) that often.

The alternative is the plastic ones, which look like this:

(source)

I like the wooden ones, too, because they look nicer. However, they're also more expensive -- usually at least $1 more per chair to rent. When you're renting more than 100 chairs, it adds up quickly!

Of course, I also love the gorgeous chiavari chairs:

(source)

But around here, at a price of about $8/each, that's way out of our budget! Plus, to be honest, I don't really think they fit the feel of our wedding too much, so I wasn't too sad to cross them off of our list.

What I did want was the wooden ones, and I wanted to find a way to make them even less expensive. So I emailed our wedding coordinator contact at Glassworks and asked her to please pass my contact info to the bride getting married the day before me, and tell her to please contact me if she might be interested in splitting the cost of renting chairs.

For a while, I didn't hear anything, so I assumed the other bride wasn't interested. But then, out of the blue, I got a phone call (with an apology for taking so long to get back to me) expressing interest from Jenica. Then the negotiations began.

It turned out she was having a larger wedding than us -- definitely 150, whereas I think we're going to end up having about 125. The width of the rooftop at Glassworks isn't huge, so you're limited in the number of chairs you can fit in each row, and, as it turns out, the wooden chairs are just slightly wider than the plastic ones. Enough so that if you use the wooden ones, you can fit only 5 chairs on each side of the aisle, but if you use the plastic ones, you can fit 6 on each side.

Here's 5 chairs on each side of the aisle, and the altar does seem kind of far away... (source)

For 150 people, that's the difference between 12 rows and 15 rows, and when you're worried about sound being carried, that can be a big difference. To be honest, I hadn't even thought of it, but it was one of Jenica's #1 concerns, so she really wanted the plastic ones.

I said we were flexible, and even though Eric wanted the wooden ones, I figured a significant price difference would probably be enough to convince him, so Jenica and I asked around for quotes.

She got the first one, and it was a great quote, with one exception. She told the company that she would be using the chairs on Saturday, and I would be using the chairs on Sunday. The company, seeing an opportunity, offered us a "deal": Instead of being charged fully for each day's rental (because we were two different weddings), the second day would be 50% off. The 150% price was more than other place's 100% price, and I knew it. I was also annoyed at that company, because if Jenica hadn't disclosed there would be two parties using the chair, they wouldn't have charged her double -- they would have given her the 100% quote because it was a single contract, and most places won't pickup on Sunday anyway. But because they saw an opportunity, they took it.

So then I made a couple calls, and simply told the rental companies that we needed the chairs for Sunday of Memorial weekend, and asked when they would anticipate delivery/pickup occurring. Most places said they would deliver late Friday afternoon or first thing Saturday morning, and would not pick up until Tuesday, because they were normally closed on Saturday afternoons and Sundays and Monday would be a holiday. Jackpot! If you don't tell them it's for two events, they just charge you for a single event, as long as it's within their normal delivery schedule.

So with that setup, we got some more quotes and found one that was the best. The plastic chairs were still significantly less expensive than the wooden ones, and both Jenica and I went back and forth -- first she said she wouldn't mind getting the wooden ones, since they looked nicer and with the shared cost, they were a good deal. Then Eric and I said we wouldn't mind getting the plastic ones, since they're less expensive, and even less so with the shared cost. In the end, economy won out; Jenica said she and her fiance were already over budget and it would be helpful to cut costs any way they could. We decided the plastic chairs won't be much hotter than the wooden ones (we're dealing with the heat in other ways, too -- more in a later post), and, let's face it, we care more about price than the look of the chairs.

I signed the contract and specified Saturday morning delivery, and Jenica and I split the cost of the deposit, and we'll split the cost of the balance come May. I'm really happy we were able to work this shared rental out -- sometimes it seems like companies in the wedding industry are just out to get you, but we found a way to use the system to our advantage. Can you imagine how silly it would be to have her chairs stacked and put away Saturday night, then have a separate set of chairs put up for our wedding, when her chairs were sitting right there, waiting until Tuesday pickup anyway?

And we really won in terms of price -- our share of the entire rental essentially works out, per chair, to the price of a single chair from other companies, not including delivery and setup. So we kind of got delivery and setup (which can be a lot of money!) for free!

What do you think -- are we scamming the system? Or are we simply being smart shoppers?

Making the Veil, Part 2

2009-01-12T14:22:00.000-05:00

When we left off, I had torn apart a perfectly nice veil and refinished the edge with silver thread. Next to do was to add the silver appliques I found, which really wasn't very difficult.

First, I laid the veil on my parents' marble dining table and placed the appliques around the edge until I found an arrangement I liked:

Next, I simply glued the appliques to the tulle according to the directions on the bottle. I made sure to put a piece of parchment paper between the tulle and the table to catch any glue that would leak through. I weighted the appliques down with heavy books and left the whole thing alone for an hour.

Then it was time for the sparkle. I added some of the self-adhesive rhinestones semi-randomly across the tulle. I put a little cluster of rhinestones between each applique to add some sparkle at the edges, and sprinkled a few throughout the body of the veil as well. It was sort of trial-and-error; I'd add a bunch of them, put the veil on, and make my sister stop what she was doing to give me her opinion. Then I'd make adjustments and ask my brother. Then I'd make some more adjustments and ask my mom. That's the beauty of doing projects at home for the holidays -- you have lots of opinions you can gather. The rhinestones weren't super sticky, so I could remove them with a pair of tweezers easily if I needed to.

And here's the final product (Eric, if you don't want to see it, don't look any further!):

And zoomed in a little:

The veil is a little wrinkly, and clearly my hair and clothes leave something to be desired, but hopefully you get the picture. There's enough going on at the edges that it's clearly not a plain veil, the design of the appliques complements the floral/vine embroidery on my dress, and the silver edge and rhinestones give it enough sparkle, but not too much. I'm really pleased with how it turned out, and really proud of the fact that I did it myself!

Here's the money breakdown:
Veil: $17.98
Appliques: $20 for 16 of them, including shipping. I bought that many because I didn't know how many I would want to use, but I still have 9 left.
Silver thread: about $5, with a coupon
Fabric glue: a couple bucks
Self-adhesive rhinestones: a couple bucks

So all in all, it probably cost about $47 to make the veil, but I still have tons of thread, appliques, fabric glue, and rhinestones left. I'm glad I did it this way, though, because it's still much cheaper than buying a new veil, and I made it exactly the way I wanted it!

Making the Veil

2009-01-11T21:50:00.014-05:00

Sorry, loyal followers (the few of you there are), for my extended absence. My winter break was busy with holiday and family stuff, and while it was also busy with wedding stuff, my hard drive also died, leaving me computer-less for two weeks. I guess that was a good thing, because I didn't have the lure of the Internet to prevent me from doing wedding stuff, so I promise you won't mind too much that I was gone for so long :)

I got to Maryland with a veil and an unbustled wedding dress, and I got back to Kentucky with a better veil and a partially bustled wedding dress. Here's how I made a perfectly good veil perfect!

Last April I bought this veil off of eBay:

It's a David's Bridal single-tier, fingertip length, unadorned, corded, pencil edge veil, brand new. It seemed like the seller somehow had an entire lot of DB veils to sell off, but I don't ask questions. It was $18, instead of the retail price of $79. And actually, I just found this same picture on the DB site, and it is listed as having pearls, but my veil definitely didn't have pearls, so maybe it's not authentic, but whatever. Everything in that first sentence is still definitely true other than the "David's Bridal" part. I should note that my can-do insane personality is sure I could make a veil from scratch -- it's just tulle and a plastic comb, after all -- but the sane part of my brain figured it would be easier to just find a cheap veil that someone else already took the trouble of cutting out correctly and attaching to a comb. You should delegate when you can.

When I first got the veil, I tried it on and was pleased. It's funny how putting on a veil just makes you feel bridelike, isn't it?

Please ignore the incredibly bad photography displayed here, as well as the incredibly bad modeling ;)

But I always knew I was going to make adjustments to this veil. You see, when I tried on my dress at the bridal salon, I tried on a veil that complemented it beautifully, but I would never, ever pay $100+ for a piece of embellished tulle. Here's the detail on the veil I liked:

It had a silver finished edge and beautiful embroidery and crystals in a floral/vine pattern around the edge.

Over the next few months, I assembled the rest of my tools:

Embroidered silver appliques in an acceptable design, from eBay.

Silver thread, from JoAnn Fabrics. I spent a good 30 minutes collecting all the spools of silver thread in the store, then comparing them to figure out which color silver was the one I wanted. I had no idea "silver" came in so many colors! Plus, it was really expensive -- that spool was almost $10! I've never bought fancy thread before, so I didn't expect that price -- in my mind, all thread should cost less than $2. Good thing I had a coupon.

Self-adhesive gemstones from my local Archiver's. This particular package had a variety of sizes, which was good for my experimentation.

A bottle of Liquid Stitch, also from JoAnn Fabrics. There are a lot of fabric glues at JoAnn's, and I asked around but couldn't get any advice as to one being better than another. Finally, the woman at the register suggested that if I might be clumsy like her, this one might be better than the other one I had narrowed it down to, because the other came in a tube, and this one was in a bottle. It was a good enough reason for me, so I went with it. The appliques were the iron-on variety, but I suspected, and confirmed with the JoAnn's experts, that ironing on tulle would melt the tulle, so I glued the appliques on instead.

While I was at JoAnn's I also picked up 1/8 of a yard of tulle to experiment with -- I didn't want to ruin my veil by accident!

First things first: Getting rid of the corded edge. The tulle was sewn to the cord very simply, and I easily detached it using a seam ripper.
(Notice the purple edge on the top of the photo? Our camera LCD seems to be going out, so a patch of funny colors shows up at the edge of all of our photos now. I hope someone buys us the new camera we registered for!)

Next, I made a bobbin of the silver thread, rigged up the whole machine, and tried out a couple techniques. I wanted to make a very thin border of silver thread at the edge of the veil, so first I tried sewing in a straight line. It worked, but didn't look good -- the line of silver thread was so thin that I realized I would have to go over it at least three times, and that didn't seem fun. Next I tried setting the sewing machine to a zigzag pattern. That ended up working really well -- as the machine made the zigzag pattern, it ended up rolling the edge of the veil under, so I ended up with a finished, rolled edge.

Here's the sewing machine in action:
You can see the silver finished edge of the veil in the background, and the way the machine is rolling the raw edge of the veil as it goes. I didn't expect for this to happen, but it was really good that it did. After one go-round with the sewing machine, I was initially impressed with the way the veil turned out, but when I put it on my head, my sister and I decided the silver edge wasn't really that noticeable. So back I went, sewing the edge one more time. The foot of the sewing machine had trouble sewing all the way to the comb the veil was attached to, so I was left with a bare, raw edge for about an inch on either side, and when I was done with the sewing machine, I finished those parts by hand.

And here's the result:

Nice, right? It has a subtle sparkle and looks a little more delicate than the corded edge. All of that took just a few hours one evening a couple days before Christmas, as my sister and I watched TV. Quite relaxing, actually!

Next up: Adding the appliques.

You deserve a present

2008-12-22T15:28:00.000-05:00

Because you've been patient.

I warn you, though: this is dress-related. So if you don't want to see a teeny, tiny piece of the dress, don't look any farther.

I'll also say, though, that after you look at this teeny, tiny piece, it won't actually ruin any of the surprise of the dress for you, so if you're unsure, you can definitely look.

This may or may not apply to Eric. Eric, you can make up your own mind.

But I figured that since my "my dress has arrived!" post was picture-less, you deserved a picture.

For your patience.

A little bit of the hem lace/beading detail and the ruffle, which I've decided to keep. The shininess is the plastic bag the dress still resides in.

I took it bridesmaid dress shopping yesterday with two of my girls, for the ridiculous excuse of putting it on in the store to see what we would look like standing next to each other (really just an excuse to put it on again), and I'm bringing it home for Christmas to show my mom and so my sister and I can fiddle with sewing a bustle. I'm sure that will be an adventure, so expect a future post about that, for sure!

Tuxes -- check!

2008-12-21T16:20:00.003-05:00

Today's post comes to you from guest blogger ESC -- that's right, my husband-to-be! He writes for a living, is the wittiest and smartest man I know, and puts a lot more thought into his posts, as you will clearly be able to tell.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It's the season of lists. Things people want to be given, things they need to buy, places they need to travel, which conversation topics to avoid with which relatives.

If you asked those who know me to list people with great powers of concentration and patience, I might show up on the third or fourth page. Not my long suit. So when my bride and I visited a Men's Wearhouse in the Mays Landing mall the other day, the fact that a 100-piece high school band was right outside, shattering windows with "Ukrainian Bell Carol," was not an encouraging way to start my tuxedo shopping.

There was nowhere to sit. The vests all looked like different colors than they had seemed in my catalog. I hadn't spent even a second considering whether I wanted to wear a different color vest than the groomsmen. The guy was only mildly helpful and interested. I was being asked questions and I had no answers and oh my God are the trombones trying to be heard from outer space, so no, it was not an encouraging start.

We sort of left things on hold and went to a different MW today, a non-mall MW, where there were swatches and a chair and some harmless, non-earsplitting Christmas muzak. Ahhhhhh.

Black Calvin Klein two-button, ivory vest for me, charcoal vests for them, shirt, links, shoes. Bam, bam, bam. Ahhhhhh.

Next list: things to learn how to do simultaneously to demonstrate ability to concentrate.

-Walk, chew gum

-Pat head, rub stomach (mine, ideally)

-Talk on phone, IM with equal levels of attentiveness and spirit (have never succeeded here)

-Drink, shut up

Recycling: Buying used to make your design scheme come together

2008-12-16T17:01:00.000-05:00

When I first started planning our wedding, I had only a couple visions for decor: purple, and flowers. The devil, of course, was in the details.

It seemed, at first, that there were just SO MANY OPTIONS. To say "flowers" is one thing; to come up with a color scheme and design aesthetic requires making a decision. To someone who knows nothing about flowers, that might be kind of daunting, but to someone like me who knows a decent bit about flowers, it's almost more aggravating, because I like everything and want it all. I think I blogged a little bit before about trying to narrow down those options, and since then, I've had a pretty solid idea of what I wanted. Now it's a matter of acquiring everything.

Here are the key players:

Table linens: It turns out that it tends to be cheaper to rent white tablecloths than colored ones, and even renting white ones costs what seems to be an arm and a leg. If we were starting from scratch, I would most likely use Bright Settings, which is a mail rental service that provides table linens pretty reasonably, in a wide choice of colors and patterns. As it turns out, though, our venue rents white linens for the least amount of money I've found anywhere, so we're going to go with those.

I toyed with the idea of making our own tablecloths, but quickly decided that was a little too ambitious, even for me. With white tablecloths, though, a table needs color, so I was on the lookout for table runners or overlays. A table runner wouldn't be too hard to make -- I can cut and sew in a straight line, after all -- but I couldn't find any good fabric online and our local amazing fabric store in Louisville, Baer Fabrics, went out of business this summer before I could get myself over there, and I was left with an unfulfilled intention to check out fabric row in Philly in person. Luckily, a kind soul posted her aubergine table runners on the Weddingbee classifieds a couple months ago, and I pounced on them. For $150, I am now the proud owner of 22 eggplant colored table runners that match our decor perfectly. I plan to resell them after the wedding, and pass on the love.

One of our new purple table runners. It's a little more "royal purple" here, but it's a beautiful eggplant in real life.

Paper lanterns: I've been trolling the Weddingbee classifieds and Craigslist periodically for a few months now (see my earlier post on Craigslist searching), and I've had some good finds. First, I acquired 10 12" and 12 10" light green lanterns (sorry, I know that's confusing) from a Weddingbee member for $45 (including shipping). From another Weddingbee member, I acquired 15 11", 12 17", and 15 23" white Ikea paper lanterns, and 32 of the Hemma light fixtures that will allow them to be lit with regular light bulbs, all for $179 including shipping. I'm not really sure if we will be able to rig up a lighting system to allow us to use all of those light cords, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it, at our venue walk through in a few months.

So that means we have 64 paper lanterns so far, mostly in white. I'm still looking for some purple ones and some more green ones. If I haven't gotten the requisite number via the classifieds by the end of March, I'll order the rest new. Still, I like being able to buy used for two reasons: cheaper, and being able to reuse products that otherwise would be thrown away. Another issue I haven't addressed is lighting all of the lanterns, which I would like to do. I have a bunch of battery-operated tea lights I acquired at some point, and I have the 32 Hemma light cords. If that's not enough, I might consider making some LED throwies, but we'll see how crafty I feel like getting this spring.

Glassware: Once I decided to do my own flowers (which was right after Eric put the ring on my finger), I started thinking about floral centerpieces. Instead of making matching centerpieces for each table, I've decided to make a smorgasbord of vase arrangements and mix and match them all around the room. After all, the majority of the beauty of flowers is in the flowers themselves, I think, and a mass of lush blooms in a vase is at least as pretty as an overly designed arrangement. Plus, and you'll see the trend here, buying vases at thrift stores is pretty cheap, and I'm reusing products that otherwise I would have to buy new. When I was living in NJ this summer, I spent a lot of time browsing thrift stores (and also Big Lots and Tuesday Morning, I have to admit), and brought home a lot of vases. To the point that Eric would give me a raised-eye look that said, "Where are we going to put these? And how are we going to get them to Louisville?" Answer #1: They were stored in his family's shore house in Ocean City, and Answer #2: He brought them in his car when he drove to Louisville for Thanksgiving, and they are now being stored at our groomsman Shea's house. And I continue to look for glassware every spare minute I get.

Here is just a sampling of what I found over the summer. I especially love the vase in the lower left corner, which has bees etched into it! I have to make sure I get that one back for myself after the reception.

I haven't yet successfully used Craigslist for buying vases, mostly because the entries are too many to comb through and generally yield poor results. And on Weddingbee, people tend to sell full lots of identical vases, which is good to know if I get desperate in May, but for now, I'm going to continue searching the thrift stores and, once the weather gets better and my time frees up, yard sales. In general, I'm looking for short vases, no taller than 10" high or so, so that the flowers don't block the sight line of the guests sitting at the table. In addition, I'm looking for clear, purple, or green glass, and unique shapes are always a plus.

Here's a picture of one of the glass bowls I bought sitting on one of the new (to me) table runners:

You need to imagine the flowers and the white tablecloth underneath (the green striped one there is what I had on the table for Thanksgiving), but you get the picture.

So that's what I troll the classified ads, thrift stores, and yard sales for: paper lanterns, glass containers, and anything else that would be a nice addition to our reception decor.

Anyone else also buying used?

Please save our date!

2008-12-15T18:48:00.006-05:00

May 24, 2009!

As mentioned previously, we are now at the T-minus 6-month mark, and the days continue to march by (when you go from 12 to 11.5 months to go, not having booked a DJ doesn't bother you so much; from 6 to 5.5 months, you stress a little every day...). What does that mean? It's time to send our save the dates!

(As a burgeoning Ob/Gyn, I could easily abbreviate "save the dates" as "STDs" and chuckle thinking about chlamydia, trichomoniasis, and strawberry cervix, but I'll save us all that awkwardness. You're welcome.)

One of the things that bugged me about our 21-month engagement was that early on there was little I could legitimately do to start making plans. The venue and date were gotten out of the way early on, and I chose my dress on my first-and-only shopping trip, but held off on ordering it until this summer. I was in a crafty designing mode and had nothing to design!

(Again, I'm now kicking myself that we still don't have a DJ, but one story at a time now...)

I don't know where I got the idea, but I really wanted to make a postcard for our save the dates, and I thought a photo of us would make for a good postcard. Postcards are good because they cost less to send than a card in an envelope, and they save paper -- cheap AND environmentally friendly! So after we had our free engagement session, there was one photo that immediately tickled my creativity neurons as being perfect for a photo postcard:

I envisioned a line or two at the top, and the bulk of the information at the bottom, among the grass. Plus, I'm still kind of embarrassed about a picture of us being all lovey-dovey hanging on everyone's refrigerators, so I liked this one because we're not the complete focus of the picture -- we're kind of small and blurry. In my head, I knew what I wanted it to look like, but I wasn't sure I had the proper tools to make it happen. I have accomplished many projects using PowerPoint to do what I want to do, graphics-wise, but I wasn't sure it was the best thing this time around, so I explored my (free) options.

I ended up downloading Paint.net, OpenOffice.org, and Inkscape. I'm sure I used none of them to their full advantage, but I figured out which ones did what I wanted them to do, with some aggravation on my part, but with good results in the end. Let me know if you want more details. Essentially, I ended up using Paint.net for adjusting the size and resolution of my image, and using Open Office Draw to lay out the text and overall postcard design.

I spent one memorable afternoon and evening downloading and evaluating free fonts from dafont.com, much to my GPA's chagrin. After boucing some ideas off of Eric, we ended up choosing a script and plain text font: Renaissance and ParmaPetit.

And here's our final result!

I formatted it so that it could be printed using VistaPrint, which I chose after requesting samples from a bunch of different online printing websites. VistaPrint was the cheapest and I couldn't detect any appreciable difference in quality between VistaPrint and some of the others, which people on some of the forums had warned me about.

Things to keep in mind: Make sure your postcard is the right size for a postcard stamp; if it's larger than 4.25 x 6", it won't qualify for the 27-cent stamp. (Current postage size regulations can always be found at usps.com). Since I actually placed the VistaPrint order back in May, I opted for super-slow, 21-day shipping because I had plenty of time. In reality, it shipped the next day and arrived well within a week. I have to imagine that the overnight upgrade fees aren't worth it.

Then they sat in the office for 6 months, waiting to be addressed and sent out, and over Thanksgiving break, when Eric came to visit, we gathered all of our families' and friends' addresses and had an addressing marathon. I got to use the purple calligraphy marker I bought at Michaels a few months ago (!) and here is the result:

I know I've blogged about my handwriting before, but I had to show it off again :) Using the calligraphy marker was so much fun! To be authentic, I know I should use calligraphy pens and real ink, but let's face it: that's just not going to happen. And my (platonic, just have him to help pay the bills) roommate just got a wedding invitation in the mail the other day addressed in ballpoint pen, with handwriting nowhere near as nice as mine (not that I'm judging), so I feel OK about my shortcut here.

The current postcard stamps are the tropical fruit ones that a lot of people seem to not like, but I think they're pretty and colorful, so I didn't lose any sleep over them.

Here's the final cost breakdown:
Photo session: free! (But cost a lot of mental anguish)
Design software: free! (But cost a lot of initial mental anguish to learn to use)
VistaPrint:
-100 postcards: free (troll around the internet for coupon codes, or sign up for their mailing list or request free samples and they'll give you discount codes)
-uploading the front and back design: $4.99 each side (this is where they get you!)
-slow processing and shipping: $6.48
-TOTAL: $16.46, or 16 cents for each postcard. Sweet!
Stamps: 27 cents each, and we bought 80 (we're only sending 1 card to each family/household unit)
Calligraphy marker at Michaels: a few bucks, plus I used a coupon, plus I'll use the marker again for the invitations, so I'm not even going to factor this in

GRAND TOTAL: 38 cents for each postcard. A bargain!

So there you go! We're waiting for one final address from a friend, and then we'll send them off. The only wrinkle is that I'm now on the east coast until January 4, but I really want to send them before then, and I really want them to have a Louisville postmark. To solve this problem, I'm going to mail them all as a package to the Louisville postmaster and have him/her process them through the Louisville post office to get the desired postmark. A little OCD? Perhaps. But it's not going to cost me much money or effort to accomplish what I need to, so I'm going to let it slide this time. So watch your mail!

The downside? I don't think we're sending Christmas cards this year -- this was a big enough mail project, and between this and having to write thank you cards for all of my residency interviews, I'm done addressing envelopes for the time being :)

Bad timing

2008-12-03T19:23:00.004-05:00

I was talking to Eric earlier and got a call on my call waiting, from an unfamiliar area code. By the time I switched over, though, I had missed the call and they didn't leave a voicemail, so I forgot about it.

This evening, I got another call from the same area code, and this time I picked it up in time. It was an automated message from UPS: "Hello, this is an automated message from UPS."

As I was wondering what package I was expecting from UPS (my Banana Republic pants shipment -- thanks, Alissa! -- came partly today, and it was delivered by USPS, not UPS), the automated UPS woman answered my question.

"A delivery is scheduled for tomorrow, December 4, from Pearl's Place..."

Pearl's Place?!?!?!!? The store I ordered my dress from!!?!?!!?!?!?!?!

TOMORROW?!!?!?!!?!??!!??!

The wonderful automated lady continued: "Someone must be present to sign for the package," (Um yeah, I hope so -- I wouldn't have it any other way for my dress!) "and it will be delivered sometime between 8 am and 7 pm. An exact time cannot be given."

And therein lies the problem: I'm leaving tomorrow morning at 9 for the airport, and I won't be back until Sunday night.

Missing the delivery won't be the biggest deal; even if my building manager can't sign for it, I'll just arrange for re-delivery next week.

It's the emotional nature of it: My dress will be here tomorrow and I probably won't get to see it until Monday!

Damn. Stupid residency interviews.

The anticipation is killing me!

Six Months!

2008-11-23T21:33:00.002-05:00

Tomorrow is the six-month mark. We're on a normal wedding planning schedule now, people. Not that you'd be able to tell by what we've accomplished. (Here's a hint: we still don't have an officiant! Gulp.)

Six months means I need to start seriously thinking about getting in shape. I mean, start getting in shape.

Six months means it's only a short time before Southwest will open up its air reservations to include our wedding date.

Six months means it's time to send out save the dates (we're going to address them over Thanksgiving and then I can finally share them with you!).

Six months means I need to contact bakers and order a cake.

And six months means that when Eric moves into his winter shore rental this week (yay, heat!), it will be, as he said, "The last place I have to live without you."

Swoon.

Usually I'm an inclusive wedding planner

2008-11-12T14:23:00.002-05:00

A conversation from the other day

Me: Do you have any opinion about using a dark purple table runner on our reception tables?
Eric: I just don't want anything so long that it gets in people's way or in the way of things on the table.
Me: No, this would just be a strip of purple fabric no longer than the tablecloth, just for a punch of color against the white. No objections to the color or the idea or anything except potential interference with people's comfort?
Eric: No, I don't really care.
Me: Well that's good, because I already bought them. Done deal.
Eric: laughs

Shoe dilemma

2008-11-10T17:26:00.000-05:00

So, you may or may not remember that I bought a pair of wedding shoes a year ago. (I know; a year ago?!?! Geez, our engagement has been long.)

They look like this:

Mossimo "Hailey," Target, $19.99, in silver (also comes in other colors)

They're fantastic. I always tend to gravitate toward tall, strappy heels, and these fit the bill perfectly.

Then, around Christmas last year, I bought these:

Mossimo "Heidi," Target, $19.99, in white (also comes in other colors, and I bought them in red also, and I always get complimented on them)

Another tall heel, this time a peep toe, d'Orsay heel, and a bow. Adorable, and very bridal!

Well, you also may or may not remember that about a year ago I mentioned

"a GREAT pair of purple pumps by Michael Shannon, style name "Anna," which seems to be a discount brand that only Off-Broadway Shoes carries, which means they do not exist on the internet at all apparently, but they were ADORABLE. If you see an Off-Broadway Shoes commercial, they're the first pair they show -- peep toe with striped purple fabric... hard to explain, but very cute. And I think because they are so difficult to find, I might just have to buy them. Sigh."

At the time, those Annas had a list price of $69.99, and an Off Broadway "discount" price of $49.99. Certainly not extravagant, but I had already bought the Heidis, so I put the purple Annas out of my mind. Sort of. A few months later, I popped into the store to see if they were still there, and they were -- and still at their original price.

A few weeks ago, though -- a whole year later, I should remind you -- I popped in again (really for no other reason than to check on these shoes, because I really don't need any other shoes right now) and quickly scanned the racks. No Annas. Had I missed them completely, or might they still be on the clearance racks now? I saw a pair in an 8, which was too big (I'm always somewhere between a 7-8, but I always have to try on the shoes to be sure), and scanned the 7.5 and 7 racks, finding only a pair of 7s in another (still pretty) color. And on sale for $34.99. If only I could find a pair of purple 7s!

Out of desperation and knowing that the clearance racks are not always properly organized, I continued on into the 6.5 section. And there was a 6.5 in purple. I have to admit to trying to squeeze my feet into them, Cinderella-style, but it would have been disaster to try to dance like that. And then, on the next row, I saw another pair, in purple. I assumed they, too, were 6.5 or even 6, but checked them just to be sure, and lo and behold -- 7s!!!!

And even better, there was some sort of sale going on, so they were discounted a further 10%, for a grand total, with tax, of $33.33. And here's what they look like:

Please excuse my ugly feet. I think I took these at the end of the day after being in the OR on my feet all day. Please also ignore how stumpy my legs look; I promise I don't actually have cankles, and I actually really love my legs!

Great shoes, right? Peep toes, d'Orsay heel, and purple! So which ones do I choose? The silver ones will go with my dress really well, the white ones will go with my dress reasonably well, and the purple ones don't go with my dress at all, but would look great in pictures (you know, those shoe shots that are so popular these days). Truthfully, I think I like the silver ones best, but a part of me wants to wear the purple ones just because they're purple (sounds crazy, but it's par for the course for me).

Help!

Food tasting!

2008-11-09T19:43:00.004-05:00

About a month ago, Eric came to visit and we had our tasting with the caterer. At that point, we were pretty sure we were going to hire Chardeau's Classic Catering, because Michelle Pendleton was so great to work with and their prices were very reasonable, but we wanted to taste the food first to make sure. Some caterers I talked to wouldn't do a tasting until after we had signed a contract, and that really rubbed me the wrong way, so I appreciated that Michelle was totally happy to do a tasting for us.

Disclaimer: I only took one picture, at the very end. It's at the bottom of this post. It's not the best food picture in the world, so don't be disappointed once you get down there.

Here's what we tasted:

Appetizers to be passed during cocktail hour on the roof:

Eggplant and roasted red pepper bruschetta
Potstickers with ginger soy dipping sauce
Gorgonzola and caramelized onion crostini

All of them were delicious, although I thought the potsticker sauce was a little thick and sweet, so I am going to ask them to adjust that for us.

We will also have, but did not taste:

Vietnamese summer rolls (goi cuon) with nuoc mam (fish sauce) and nuoc leo (peanut sauce) for dipping -- one of my favorite appetizers ever.
Grilled chicken satays with chili garlic peanut sauce
Possibly a crudite station, but we'll see

Ahead of time, we decided on two different salads:

Arugula salad with lemongrass vinaigrette
Insalata misto (mixed greens, tomatoes, cucumbers, roasted almonds, gorgonzola cheese) with a balsamic-based vinaigrette

At the tasting, we just tried the salad dressings with a little bit of fresh baby spinach. I ended up not liking either vinaigrette very much. The lemongrass one was very smooth but was missing something that I couldn't pinpoint, and the balsamic-based vinaigrette had WAY too much balsamic vinegar in it. And for me to say that something has too much vinegar... well, that takes a lot. We couldn't really decide what to do about the salads anyway; we are having a buffet dinner, but I like the idea of having a plated salad served at the table to start dinner off. With two salads, the best Michelle could suggest was to simply alternate the salads so every other person would get the same one. I didn't love that idea, but I still didn't like the idea of having the salad on the buffet itself -- you either need another plate, which is awkward to juggle, or you put salad on your dinner plate and leave less room for "real" food, which would annoy me.

So now we're thinking of just one salad, something along the lines of the insalata misto, with one dressing, probably a balsamic vinaigrette, as long as Chip can make it a little less... tart.

For the dinner buffet we will have:

Grilled lemongrass chicken
Seared tuna topped with a blend of fire-roasted Italian plum tomatoes, olives, capers, and basil
Risotto Florentine (spinach)
Spicy eggplant, asparagus, and broccoli in ginger sauce

Well, we ended up scratching the veggies in ginger sauce. You see, we had an initial attempt at Asian + Italian (a nod to my heritage and cuisines we love), which works well for a mixture of hors d'oeuvres or two different salads, but the ginger sauce just competed with everything else on the main dinner plate, and on top of that, I didn't like it.

So on the spot, Chip whipped up some extra sauteed veggies in a little olive oil and garlic, and it was scrumptious. Decision made!

The lemongrass chicken was amazingly succulent, moreso than any chicken breast I've ever had. It wasn't an authentic Thai lemongrass chicken, but it used lemongrass in a very subtle way that I appreciated. I actually don't much like the authentic dish, because I always feel it to be too dry and the lemongrass flavor too strong, so this was perfect.

And the tuna... DELICIOUS! It was a huge tuna steak smothered in tomatoes, olives, and capers. It was cooked well done, but we decided as a group that medium would be a good compromise between our personal preferences (medium rare) and the good of the group (well done) for the actual dinner. And while neither Eric nor I likes olives, we decided to be grownups and believe that they serve a purpose in the dish and leave them in. Aren't you proud of our maturity?

The risotto was probably my favorite thing (have I said that a million times already?), and carbs or no carbs, I will be eating a ton of it for dinner on May 24.

What's that? The picture I promised? OK:

I totally forgot to take any pictures while we were at the tasting, but Michelle and Chip sent us home with all of the leftovers, and I finally remembered to take a picture when we opened them back up at home. The tasting was enough for lunch for both of us, and the leftovers were a great snack a few hours later! On the left you can see the new version of the sauteed veggies, and on the main plate are the remains of the tuna (right next to the fork), the chicken (on the right side of the plate), the creamy risotto goodness, and a pile of tomato-olive-caper topping. I know it's not the most appetizing picture, but it honestly looks just as delicious as I remembered and I cannot wait for more!

So that's that; the deposit is put down, we're sending in the contract this week, and one more vendor is crossed off the list!

Careers and Marriage

2008-10-28T20:05:00.002-04:00

For pretty much my entire career to this point, I have been pursuing my end goal as an individual, by myself. Of course, Eric has long been there to provide support outside of school, and he definitely makes the social rounds with me and my med school friends (honestly, I'm pretty sure some of my friends like him more than they like me!), but in my official role as a future physician, it's just been me, myself, and I.

Until now.

I've heard horror stories about med students being grilled about their relationships and/or future family aspirations, and I've even heard about some med students taking off their engagement/wedding rings while on the interview trail, so prospective employers don't question their commitment to the job. Certain specialties, for sure, are less family-friendly than others, and I can definitely imagine that a single female surgery applicant might be more appealing to a program director than a married female surgery applicant; fewer distractions to draw them away from a 100-hour work week. On the whole, though, Ob/Gyn is pretty family-friendly (well, the people are pretty tolerant of families, even though the work schedule is decidedly not so), so it never really occurred to me to hide the fact that I am getting married.

In fact, I am using my relationship to my advantage. You see, it might look odd to some program directors to see an applicant from Kentucky applying to small programs on the east coast. And indeed, on both of the interviews I've been to so far, I got some pretty probing questions about why the heck I wanted to come to New Jersey/DC. But everyone was satisfied to hear that both my fiance and I hailed from the east coast and were looking to return. And, in fact, that my fiance is already working on the east coast and that I'm hoping to join him.

And while I'm happy to handle all of those relocation/marriage questions (none of them so far have even come close to being illegal) myself, I'm realizing that Eric has a role to play in all of this as well.

Most programs have a night-before-the-interview social event where you can meet the current residents in a more informal setting. And a lot of those programs say that I am welcome to bring a guest (implied: spouse/significant other) to the social event if I would like. Due to his work schedule, Eric will unlikely be able to come to very many of them, but I definitely get the sense that these programs are, in fact, looking for residents who have happy outside lives and are willing to create a work environment that fosters continued happy outside lives -- great for me!

And then I came across this article from the NY Times, which discusses the role of the spouse in the job application process. Of course, much to my chagrin, it talks solely about the female spouses of male job applicants, but whatever. What I did find interesting was the idea that the spouse herself could play a deciding factor in the applicant's success. To be honest, it makes sense, although it's a little scary because I have never thought of it before. And as much as I am not a traditional type of person, the majority of medicine is still very much seated in tradition, and I can imagine that spouses are secretly of interest to residency programs, in both a positive and negative sense.

In fact, while on my OB rotation last month, the upper-level residents were discussing interview diners and were saying they always instructed their own spouses to talk up the spouses of the interviewees. And sometimes, the spouses shared information that was of use to the residents. Like, for instance, the spouse that disclosed that they really wanted to stay in their home state of ___, but that our program was strong, so the interviewee was checking it out. Oops.

So I have instructed Eric on what he can and cannot say during any significant other vetting situations. Luckily, I only applied to two programs outside of our desired geographical region, and I'm only keeping one of those interviews (my home program), and Eric can't come to the dinner. And of course, I've already shared with a few different people here that I'm not really trying to stay, so it doesn't matter anyway -- I've already shot myself in my own foot on that front.

But, whew, this process is exhausting! Explaining how I got to Kentucky, and why I want to leave, and making sure Eric sticks to his script as well, is a lot more than I thought I would have to deal with. All this for a job. That allows me to have a happy marriage.

I know it's been a while...

2008-10-27T20:19:00.003-04:00

...and believe me, I miss blogging for all of you. I just wanted to let you know that I haven't forgotten about you, but I've been really really really busy these last few weeks. And before I can tell you about the caterer we booked and the tasting we had, I have to actually book the caterer. And if I'm too busy to book the caterer, well, blogging has to take a backseat, unfortunately.

But don't worry, there are lots of updates for you! Caterer, chair rentals, more escapades into purple bridesmaid dresses and fabric swatches, and a beautiful new pair of purple shoes. Purple shoes!!!

And if you really do care about me, and not just my wedding planning (just kidding, I know you only care about the wedding planning ;), you will be happy to know that my busy-ness involves flying all over the country interviewing for residency. Since Eric is counting on my future Ob/Gyn salary to support his poor liberal arts career (poor in the financial sense only), I'd better keep my end of the bargain and find a job!

Just kidding, just kidding. He loves me for more than my future earning potential.

Updates soon, I promise!

JoP Update

2008-10-13T01:11:00.001-04:00

A few days after the last debacle, I finally got in touch with JoP #1 (the recurrent amnesia guy), and he told me to just call him a couple days before we wanted to meet, and he would meet up with us. So a late last week, I gave him a call and left a message telling him when I wanted to meet. He never -- and still hasn't -- called back.

JoP #2 called me back a few days after the first time I talked to her and was super-excited about meeting us for a consultation. For a $50 fee. I accepted, but immediately planned to cancel. I know $50 isn't THAT much, especially for these kinds of things, but this one keeps adding fees (the rehearsal is extra, too), and it just doesn't seem right.

We met with JoP #3 last weekend, when Eric was in town, and he has an interesting demeanor. He called me earlier that afternoon to confirm our meeting, which I appreciated. When we got to the courthouse, though, he met us in the lobby and asked, "Do you have your witnesses?" Immediately understanding what he thought, I quickly said, "No, no, we're not here to get married, we're here to meet with you." He apologized, asked us our names (which he had already done on the phone), and started walking us up to his office. He was chit-chatting with us, and, in the course of telling a story, asked our names again. Less than 2 minutes after the first time. I was not happy.

JoP #3 ended up being very nice, but I just don't think he's the guy for us. On the plus side, he adamantly sticks to the JoP-agreed fee of $75, while JoP #2 has raised her price to $125 for the ceremony, $75 for the rehearsal, and $50 for a consultation. JoP #3 doesn't believe that's right, and told us that if money is the hurdle preventing us from getting married, to be honest with him, because he has given discounts and performed ceremonies for free before. To him, the important thing is the marriage, and $75 shouldn't stand in the way.

Not that the $75 is what's standing in the way of us using him, but I like that this guy's heart is in the right place. He's a Baptist minister in his outside life, and serves as chaplain for the city jail. He gave us his card, to use or pass on to friends, to be used if we ever find ourselves behind bars. In that case, he would take care of us, "and get you a sandwich so you don't starve." I repeat: a good heart. His mother-in-law was also Wilma Rudolph, the track star, which is pretty cool.

I was also able to get him to dish on the other two JoPs. He told us that JoP #1 is a retired police officer, and is known for being difficult to reach. "He's retired, so he doesn't have the drive" to keep up with his marriage ceremonies, JoP #3 explained. I don't know what JoP #2 does for a living, but JoP #3 said he was aware of her fee tables, and disapproved. Apparently, when they were all elected, they all agreed to the $75 fee, and are supposed to stick with it. If I cared more, I would call JoP #2 and attempt to hold her to it, but 1) I don't think I want an officiant who I have to bargain down to an apparently previously agreed-upon fee, and 2) Maybe JoP #3 isn't teling the truth, so I wouldn't want to confront JoP #2 without some proof.

So here's where we stand:
JoP #1 is dead to us, since he won't return phone calls.
JoP #2 is pretty much dead to us, since she wants (comparatively) exorbitant fees.
JoP #3 is a nice guy, but his initial forgetfullness still bothers me, and something about his personality just didn't click with us, so we probably won't be using him.

Where does that leave us?

I have the name of a non-denominational minister who comes highly recommended from the local Knotties who charges $250 for the ceremony (consultation included) and $75 for the rehearsal. I don't like those prices, and I really don't want a religious ceremony, even if it is non-denominational.
The father of a med student in the class below me is a judge, and he apparently does weddings sometimes for people he knows. The student enthusiastically told me to let her know if I want her to ask her father for us, but I don't know how sincere the offer really was. I guess it can't hurt to ask, though.
My paternal grandfather is a retired minister. I don't think he can legally marry us in Kentucky, and there are a lot of emotional issues I need to work through to get to the point of asking him, plus there's the whole I-don't-want-a-religious-ceremony thing, but at the same time, it would be nice to have my grandfather marry us. And JoP #3, when I broached the subject, said that if we wanted my grandfather to marry us, he would just do the paperwork and let my grandfather do the whole ceremony, which is very generous of him. So it's an option.

I'm going to forget about it for a few weeks and maybe an answer will come to me in my sleep. Any other ideas would be welcome.

Free photography!

2008-10-12T00:32:00.004-04:00

I can't believe this, but we won an engagement session with the fabulous DC photographer Carmen Fong! To win, I had to submit our engagement story, and while I love me some spotlight, it's a little embarrassing to have our story on someone else's blog. It's so personal, you know?

Well, whatever. If it gets us free stuff, so be it :)

Here's the catch: I'm in Louisville, and Eric's in AC. We have to figure out a time to get down to DC for the photo shoot, but in between all my residency interviews back east, I'm sure we'll find a time that works for everyone. (By the way, I've gotten a bunch of interviews, which makes me very happy!!!)

In the meantime, I have to start brainstorming ideas for places in the DC metro area to have the photo shoot, keeping in mind that it will probably be November or December. Tidal Basin? National Mall? There won't be any cherry blossoms, but those are still my favorite spots ever. Too bad the triceratops is long-gone from outside the Natural History Museum, or else there would definitely be a triceratops shot in the bunch. Georgetown at Christmas time, which is another one of my favorite things? The UMD campus? The zoo? Ideas, please!

Also, go check out Carmen's awesome photography skills on her blog. I'm so excited!

Tag! You're It!

2008-09-26T19:16:00.002-04:00

I got tagged by Introverted Bride today, so here you go:

4 Things I Did Today (since midnight):

Did a bunch of ultrasounds, including my first transvaginal one.
Checked three cervixes. In one, I could totally tell the external os was dilated 1 cm, but I couldn't reach the internal os to figure out it was closed. In another, I could feel the head RIGHT THERE, but couldn't reach back up behind it to feel the cervix, which was only 4 cm dilated. In the last one, there that head was again, but now I'm so unsure of myself that I couldn't tell where the cervix was. Need more practice, desperately. Also: small hands are not good for obstetrics.
Watched Project Runway this morning when I got home (thank goodness for DVR). Although I loved Kenley and her totally cute 50s dresses, her attitude is seriously getting on my nerves, and she needs to go. And although Suede's third-person speak was a tad annoying, I heart Suede, and I was sad to see him leave. But oh my god, did you see the teaser for next week? What is up with everyone crying?! I don't know how I'm going to wait until Wednesday night -- I mean, Thursday morning.
Slept from 10 am to 6 pm. Now I'm going to be wired all night, even though I'm off for the weekend. I was hoping to force myself up around 2 so that I would be tired tonight at a decent hour, but two phone calls from Eric to try to wake me up (on my request) were useless. So I foresee lots of late-night TV tonight. Adjusting to a night schedule is hard! How am I going to last a whole month at this?

4 Things On My To-Do List:

Finish unpacking. I got back to Louisville last Saturday, dumped all my stuff in the living room, and started work on Sunday. Since then, all I've literally accomplished when I'm home is sleeping, showering, and making coffee.
Finish editing an article for my side job
Finish reviewing 79 articles for a literature review I'm trying to get published
Figure out what we want to have the caterer make us from our working menu for our tasting next week! Yay! A wedding task! (Actually, there are many, many more wedidng tasks to do, but I won't break the rules of the tag game.)

4 Of My Guiltiest Pleasures:

Long showers. Our apartment has its own water heater, which is nice, because I know no one else is to blame for using up our hot water, but it's bad, because individual water heaters tend to be small. So I can use up all my hot water in a 15-20 minute shower. Which I do when I need to splurge on myself.
Reality/contest/makeover TV. I like to pretend I hate the concept of reality TV, but I have my favorites: ANTM and Project Runway, of course, and What Not to Wear, Say Yes to the Dress, and a variety of others. Lately, though, I've found myself getting sucked into the rest of the Bravo lineup, and I am now DVR-ing Top Design, The Rachel Zoe Project, and Tabatha's Salon Takeover. When you come home at 8 am after being up all night, it's just easy to space out in a show like that, with no real plot to follow.
Sleep. Back in college, I heard the advice that there are three main focuses (foci) in life: sleep, study, social life. You only have enough time to focus on two of the three, and the message was sort of that social life should be the priority. Well, for me, sleep has always been my #1, at the expense of both studying and social life, depending on the week. I have managed to adjust to my crazy work schedule, and I know it's only going to get worse when I get into residency, but any time I get to sleep in, I do.
Eating out. This shouldn't really be classified as a "guilty" pleasure, because I LOVE food. I guess the guilty part is that eating out can get expensive, but whatever. I also like to cook, so it evens out in the end. The bottom line is that I like good food.

4 Random Facts About Me:

I was born on Valentine's Day
I am only 5'1". Eric is 6'2". We look ridiculous with each other, to be honest. I know tall girls are mad at me for taking him.
My first job was at Burger King. I hope they someday make a commercial full of famous people who started out at Burger King, like that one McDonald's had a few years ago. I need them to wait until I'm famous first, though.
If I ever get sick of delivering babies and cutting women open (not that I can see that ever happening!), I'm going to be a florist/event planner.

Now it's my turn to tag. It's your turn to blog:

Secrets of a native Las Vegas bride (although she may not have time now that she's Weddingbee's Miss Dumpling!)

Trip to the Altar

Last Kiss as a Single Girl

The Life of a Childless Housewife

Get to it!

I just bought my wedding dress!

2008-09-18T11:33:00.000-04:00

Squeeeeeeeeeeeee!

My original budget for a wedding dress was $500. I knew it could be done, but that it would limit me to simpler silhouettes and lower-budget stores. I didn't think that would be a problem, and I felt it was a fun challenge to meet. After all, I knew I was never going to have a Vera Wang, and I refused on principle to have a dress that cost more than $1000, so it wasn't like I was compromising my goals tremendously with a budget of $500.

A year ago, when I found this dress, I knew it was going to be the one. It was anything but simple -- full of intricate embroidery, and my budget immediately went out the window. I started pricing it, and prices ranged from the $1050 the shop in Louisville wanted to about $700 or so from various online retailers. HouseofBrides.com, my standard for all things inexpensive in the wedding world, originally wanted $700, but now wants $750 (I guess due to the worsening economy). The challenge got harder, but I got more determined.

In my Googling, I came across some of the Chinese knock-off websites, like Periwing.com, that promised great things for less than $200. I considered it, de-considered it, re-considered it, and then began considering it seriously.

My reasoning was, "Even if it's not an EXACT replica, it will be pretty good, and that's good enough for me." And if it's really bad, I can afford to lose $200 -- the benefits are worth the risk.

Then I saw some pictures of actual knock-offs, and while they were pretty good, therefore meeting my standard, they weren't EXACT replicas, and a feeling of doubt started to grow in the pit of my stomach. I succumbed to the wedding industry, dammit.

So then I turned to pre-owned and sample sales. The problem with me buying pre-owned is that I'm very short, and I need to order the shortest version of this dress. Because of the design of the dress, there's no place to shorten the dress. There are no horizontal seams on the dress at which to pull up the skirt -- not at the hem, not at the waist. Multiple seamstresses have told me that it would be very difficult to shorten, so my best bet is to get the shorter version off the bat. So none of the pre-owned or sample dresses I found worked. Stupid tall people.

One particularly depressing day, I discussed it with Eric. I was no longer 100% comfortable with a knock-off, I couldn't find a used dress that would work, and I was unfortunately in love with a dress that was out of my budget and if I were going to order it new, it was getting close to the time I'd have to do it. We discussed it some more, and we decided that I would keep an eye out on the pre-owned market, but if I hadn't found one by the time my rotation in Philly ended at the end of August, I would start the process of buying new, and we would just have to adjust our budget. Did I mention I totally love this guy?

So last week I went through my old emails of price quotes, trying to figure out who would give me the best deal on the dress. I came across one from Pearl's Place, who told me a year ago that they couldn't give me a quote over email, but would be happy to help me out if I called. So, a year later, I called.

$525, plus $12 shipping.

SRSLY!?!?!!?!??! That's so close to my original budget, it's ridiculous! WHY didn't I call this place a year ago?

All that was left for me to do was to figure out my measurements and place my order! Unfortunately, I left my shoes back in Louisville, but my friend David was coming east for a rotation in DC, so I got him to stop in my apartment a few weeks ago to pick them up for me. This past weekend, I got them from him, and yesterday, I went to a store here at the shore that carried the designer's line and tried on some other styles in various sizes.

Since Pearl's Place doesn't do online orders, I sent them an email last night with all of my order information and shipping address, and asked them to call me today to get my credit card number. I wanted my order to be in writing, just in case anything happens in the future. So this morning, the wonderful salesperson from Pearl's Place called me and took my credit card number, and I placed my order!!!!!

It's a huge relief, and I'm so excited! Talk about a buzz kill, though -- now I have to wait 12-16 weeks for it to come in.

What? You want to see a picture?

Well... OK.

The model is wearing it in ivory with gold embroidery, but I'm going to get it with silver embroidery instead.

Like it? I do! And I'm so glad it all worked out.

Researching Justices of the Peace

2008-09-17T18:41:00.003-04:00

Our county clerk's website lists three Justices of the Peace (JoP) available for performing wedding ceremonies. In a fit of attempted productivity back in March (a full 14 months before the wedding), I called JoP #1. After playing a bit of phone tag, he took down my name, number, and wedding date, and told me, "OK, you're in my book! Call me this fall and we'll set up a meeting."

"Um, do you have a fee?" I meekishly asked, completely thrown off by having apparently already booked an officiant, just like that.

"We'll talk about it later! Talk to you in a few months!"

I didn't bother trying to contact the other two JoPs at that point, because I realized that it was very, very early to be trying to set up an officiant.

Today, a few months later, I tried again.

JoP #1 didn't answer, so I left a message asking if he could meet with us in a few weeks when Eric comes to Louisville to get some wedding stuff done. His voicemail message concludes with, "God bless."

JoP #2 was a woman with a stern voice and Kentucky accent. She was very friendly, told me her prices, said she was very willing to work with us on a wedding ceremony. She said she was free for our wedding date, but would have to check her schedule for an October 3 meeting, and would call me back in 20 minutes. That was 5 hours ago.

JoP #3 was a man with a friendly southern accent. He told me his fees, and when I asked about his ceremony, he said, "I use a traditional wedding ceremony from the Bible, with the lines from 13 Corinthians, 'love is patient, love is kind,' and most people do a unity candle, and I say a prayer." Which, no offense to anyone, is exactly the wedding ceremony I DON'T want. He did say he would be willing to work with us on the ceremony, though, so I guess there's room for adjustments. He also ended our phone call with, "God bless."

If a non-clergyperson ended a phone call with "God bless" in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, or Maryland, I would be very, very surprised. In Kentucky, it's pretty common, so I'm not completely surprised by it anymore, but still weirded out by it a little. Is it OK for a judge to say it? I don't know.

Anyway, a couple hours later, JoP #1 returns my call. I explain what he supposedly already knew, and what I reminded him of in my voicemail, namely, my name, wedding date, and phone number, and that I wanted to meet with him on October 4. "Sure! What time?" I told him that any time was fine for us, and asked what time was best for him. "Let me check my book. I'll call you back. What's your name?" And after I told him, he asked, "What's your phone number?" At this point, I'm a little weirded out, because he just called me on my phone number, but whatever.

About an hour after that, he calls again. "Hi, this is JoP #1, calling you about your October 4 wedding!" I explained that no, our wedding is in May, but we wanted to meet with him on October 4. "Oh... [as though this is news to him] OK, well, let me call you back. I'll call you that morning to set up a time." (At least, that's what I heard.) "You'll call me the morning of October 4 to meet that day?" I said. "No, no, I'll call you back tomorrow, but we'll most likely meet that morning." Ooooooh, OK -- that makes a little more sense.

A little while later, I get another phone call. "Hi, this is JoP#3, are you here yet?"

"I'm sorry?"

"This is JoP #3. We're meeting today about your upcoming wedding. Are you here yet?"

"No, this is Holly, my wedding's in May, and I thought we were scheduled to meet on Friday, October 3?"

"Oh, right. Sorry. I have the wrong number. I'm meeting with someone else today."

"Oh, no problem. I'll see you October 3," I tried to say as he brusquely said goodbye. The wrong number thing is kind of weird, because I still have a Maryland area code on my cell phone, so you would think he would have realized he was dialing a weird number. But maybe not.

So JoP#1 has recurrent amnesia, JoP#2 hasn't called me back yet (but I'll give her the benefit of the doubt and try again tomorrow), and JoP#3 is already getting me confused with another client and basically performs religious ceremonies.

Wonderful.

Bridesmaid dresses, part 3

2008-09-14T21:01:00.021-04:00

A year ago, when we got engaged, I was pretty resigned to the fact that I wouldn't have a lot of girly shopping time with my friends or family. I'm in the midwest/south, everyone else is on the east coast, (um, not to mention my parents are living in Brussels now) and we are ALL super busy.

I was going to be super-accommodating about the bridesmaid dresses anyway, but I knew it would also help for me to have that mindset since we couldn't get everyone together for a big bridesmaid dress try-on session. I never even thought twice about it; I just told the girls to find a Mori Lee dress they liked in the color eggplant and to let me know when they had decided.

But then, I came to the east coast for two and a half months. And even then, I didn't really put it all together. But then, in the last week, I've been lucky enough to see all of my bridesmaids but one. SIX of them! And not only was there eating and drinking and chick flicks and general all-around fun, but we got to look at dresses also!

First, I got together for dinner last week with my two friends and bridesmaids from high school in Cranbury, NJ, and we ended up going to a local bridal salon just for fun. They didn't carry Mori Lee, but they carried lots of other designers, and nearly all of them had the color I'm looking for (side note: when I started looking for bridesmaid dresses a year ago, NO ONE had the color I was looking for. I was having a fashion-forward wedding. Now, EVERYONE has the color I'm looking for, and suddenly my choice of eggplant is the trendiest thing out there. Just remember: I chose eggplant before the designers did!). There were also lots of choices for green dresses, in case any of the girls want to wear green. While I was continually saying, "Whatever, I don't care" to my friends' questions (short or long? satin or chiffon? sleeveless or sleeves?), they made some decisions on their own.

So by majority opinion, we think short, tea-length dresses are better than long dresses, in order for everyone to have a similar level of formality.

Yesterday, I got together with my two friends and bridesmaids from college, in the Baltimore suburbs. One of the girls was down for the weekend from Pittsburgh, and it was total serendipity that we were both planning to be in Maryland the same weekend, because the three of us have tried hard to get together before, and we can never find a free weekend in common! My two sisters came up from our house in southern Maryland, and the five of us went to a bridal shop that did carry Mori Lee.

Our experience at the shop near Baltimore was OK, but not great. The salespeople, while nice, weren't very knowledgeable. They told me that certain dresses were available in certain colors, when I knew for a fact that they weren't, based on the catalog I picked up from another shop a few months ago. They had no idea what I was referring to, and seemed flummoxed by the fact that I knew so much, and even had a catalog ("Where did you get that?!?" -- in a confused/amazed, not antagonistic tone). It was disheartening. On top of that, they were the kind of shop that rips the tags out of their dresses, which I think is evil. I actually think it might be illegal, but we found our way around it -- first of all, while they ripped the tags out of the back of the dresses, many of the designers print their names on the straps used to hang the dress on the hanger, so it wasn't too hard to figure out. Plus, of course, just our luck, no pictures allowed.

Anyway, decisions were made by my two college bridesmaids and sisters as well. Yay! I like decisions, especially when they involve people picking out their own clothes!

Here is the dress sister #1 (the older of my two younger sisters) has picked out:

source

Bari Jay #756, made of "Bella" chiffon, which comes in the perfect shade of eggplant.

Here is what sister #2 (the younger of my two younger sisters) has picked out:

source

After Six #6518, in Nu Georgette with matte satin trim. Both the trim and the dress can come in any color in those lines, which is pretty cool. My sister could get all purple, all green, or purple with another color trim, like cream, ivory, black, or even green to coordinate perfectly! (It will be up to her.) The only problem is that we aren't yet 100% sure whether the color "aubergine" or "bordeaux" is the one we're looking for -- I'll have to go back to a shop with swatches to see.

During the fitting room escapades, both of my college friend bridesmaids expressed concern that the softer fabrics like chiffon wouldn't be as forgiving for our late-twenties mid-sections, and I agree (about myself and my midsection! Not them and theirs!!), so they looked at satin dresses instead and found one they liked:

source

After Six #6513, in "Renaissance" satin. The picture shows it in eggplant, but I think it looks different on the computer screen than in real life. This morning I put in an order for a swatch of fabric ($15 for 2 6x6" swatches! The worst part is, I can't believe I actually paid for it...) to see if the color works. Of course, right after I placed the order was when my sister told me about her interest in the aubergine color in the nu georgette line, but I can't bear to place another fabric order. I'm planning to go to the extremely nice bridal shop in Louisville that I keep bothering and see if they will cut me a tiny snippet from their swatch card instead. I think they will. I find it very frustrating that different types of fabric come in different colors, although I understand (sort of) why. I just wish it could be a little easier, to accommodate the accommodating brides like me!

Surprisingly, some of the Mori Lee dresses that looked great on the models looked odd in real life. Actually, that's not very surprising at all, is it? For instance, both of these dresses were strong contenders from the website/catalog collection, but didn't fare so well on our real-life models:

Mori Lee 761

Mori Lee 767

These dresses were essentially the same from the bust down; the only difference was that #761 is strapless and #767 has spaghetti straps. The problem was that at the waist, the pleats were constructed in such a way as to make the skirt bubble up and out from the waist, instead of lying flat and creating a normal A-line skirt. Even on my sister, who has the body of a super model (seriously, I'd submit her for ANTM except she's not quite tall enough), it looked poufy and awkward and gave her an unflattering waistline. Kind of like this, only without being colonial and therefore at least kind of cool:

source

They also tried on this Mori Lee dress, which looks absolutely amazing and adorable, but it doesn't come in anywhere near the right colors. Darn.

Mori Lee 768

Later, after we had left, one of my college bridesmaids remembered that she has a dark purple dress already, and wondered if it might be appropriate. She showed it to me last night, and I think it's perfect! We're just going to double-check the shade of purple once I get my swatch, but otherwise, she's good to go. How randomly perfect is that! She said she bought the dress a year or so ago on sale at Macy's. Even better than being able to wear a bridesmaid dress again in the future is being able to wear a dress you already have as a bridesmaid dress.

And as for my high school bridesmaids? Well, at the shop in NJ, they didn't cut the tags out of dresses, allowed us to take pictures, and might have made more of an effort to take down my information and enter me into their system (which I did not want), but were overcome by other walk-ins, so we were left to our own devices -- yay!

First up, seeing how eggplant and green look together:

I was being a horrible photographer that night, and my best friends' faces don't look that great, so I cropped them. It's totally my fault; I take full responsibility.

The purple dress on the left is Alfred Angelo #6904, in grape. The color is gorgeous, but the dress looks a little young for us. The green dress on the right is Jim Hjelm #JH5710T, in moss. Because of my flash, it looks a lot brighter than it does in real life. In real life, it's a gorgeous dark green, and looks pretty much exactly the same as it does here. I think the two colors look fabulous together.

Next up, we have two dresses in the same color, but in different fabrics. On the left, we have what I think is Jim Hjelm #JH5653T, in eggplant chiffon, and on the left we have Bill Levkoff #901 in eggplant satin. Again, I think the dresses look fabulous together, and any difference between the colors in satin and chiffon is barely noticeable. The Bill Levkoff dress is a floor-length one, while the Jim Hjelm is a tea-length, and this was the combo that sparked the decision to not mix lengths, because the girls felt the level of formality between the two was just too different.

Then, we played with different shades of purple:

On the right, the same possibly-Jim Hjelm dress in the "right" color, and on the left, a Jordan dress in plum -- I think it's Jordan #520, although the model is wearing the shoulder a little differently.

I was OK with the color combo at first, especially when you add in the possibility of a green to the mix, but for some reason, by the end of the night, we decided it would be easier to keep the purple color choice standard.

We also played around with different shades of green, but I didn't take any pictures. What we focused on was the Jim Hjelm moss color and the Alfred Angelo clover, which is a lighter green. Here is my ghetto photoshopped (actually, I used Paint.net) montage of my vision:

Clockwise from top left: Bill Levkoff satin eggplant; Jim Hjelm moss chiffon; Jim Hjelm eggplant chiffon; Alfred Angelo clover satin.

I think they all look pretty damn good together!

My high school bridesmaids didn't choose dress styles; we were getting hungry and wanted to go to dinner, so they'll keep looking on their own.

So that leaves one bridesmaid who I did not get to see this week -- my FSIL. She was actually the brains behind the idea of having the girls in two (or now three!) different colors. She was in a wedding today in Maine, and the bridesmaids all wore Jim Hjelm dresses in moss green. Jim Hjelm is actually a pretty pricey label, at least by my standards, so I wouldn't ask my bridesmaids to buy any of those dresses unless they really wanted to. At the same time, though, it would be nice if my FSIL could wear her dress again, since it would fit into our color scheme so well. Plus, she had to sink additional money into the dress to get it altered to fit her ever-expanding (due to pregnancy!) belly, so it seems like a waste to only get to wear it once. Of course, by the time our wedding rolls around, she will be 4 months post-partum, so we'll probably have to get the dress taken in again, but that will be OK. I actually haven't talked to her yet about all of this, but I know she reads this blog, so Paige: What do you want to wear?

This morning I sent an email to all of the girls with a summary of our decisions: tea-length or unformal floor-length gowns, in any of the following designers/colors:
-Mori Lee eggplant
-Jim Hjelm eggplant
-Bill Levkoff European eggplant
-Alfred Angelo grape
-After Six, Renaissance satin, eggplant
-Bari Jay, eggplant
-B2, bordeaux
-Da Vinci, aubergine
-After Six, Nu Georgette, aubergine (probably)
-Jim Hjelm moss
-Alfred Angelo clover
-Mori Lee patina, maybe

As long as no one is the odd person out, I'm happy to mix colors, styles, and fabrics.

Overall, I'm really happy I was able to go shopping with so many of my bridesmaids. They all thought it was productive, which makes me happy, and we're getting ever-closer to a decision! My goal is to order the dresses by Thanksgiving, which will give everyone plenty of time to get alterations if needed. I'm getting really excited about this and I can't wait to see what everyone's final decision is and how they will all look together!

What do you think about our color palette?

Ooooh, Letterpress!

2008-09-14T16:13:00.001-04:00

I have not yet lauded the delights of letterpress stationery -- specifically, letterpress wedding invitations -- but there will be time for that later. I promise.

Right now, I must alert you to this very awesome and cool contest going on over at The Dingbat's Agenda, a blog about all things delicious and letterpressed and stationer-y. Up for grabs is a full wedding letterpressed invitation suite! SWEEET!

Go enter yourself! Or don't -- a better chance for me!

See all the details here:
The Dingbat's Agenda: GIVEAWAY 3, A Sweet Suite

The Anti-Wedding

2008-09-11T23:08:00.003-04:00

My sister and bridesmaid sent me a link to the Washington Post's Wedding Week coverage, and there's some good stuff there. Money tips, music tips, a video slideshow of a baker making a wedding cake. The best thing I've seen so far, though, is a piece called The Anti-Wedding.

It chronicles the two authors' quest to plan the ultimate anti-wedding. They envision dead leaves in the bouquet and dirty city pigeons instead of doves being released at the end of the ceremony. The wedding they ultimately plan has no resemblance at all to your average Wedding Industrial Complex affair, and it actually sounds kind of fun -- a death and taxes scaveger hunt? Cool!

This was my favorite part (the writing is just so good):

"One couple catches our attention with a quirky coincidence: Her name is Jaqi Ross. His name is Chris Rossi. Ross and Rossi live together in . . . Rosslyn. These two, both 34, are open to just about anything, such as getting married in a morgue, Jaqi suggests, or on their living room couch. There will be no lace anywhere near this wedding. Also, she hates flowers.

We are convinced that this is our couple. And then we are rewarded with a glorious bonus: It turns out that Chris is a pathologist, and Jaqi works for the IRS. This will be the union of life's only two certainties . . . death and taxes. A themed anti-wedding."

Death and taxes. Classic!

What the writers got wrong, though, is their sense that they are the only ones who want an anti-wedding. Based on the bazillion wedding websites I read (none of them being The Knot), there are lots of brides out there planning nontraditional weddings. Some look more nontraditional than others, for sure, but there are plenty of brides trying to make a statement and have a unique, non-Wedding Industrial Complex wedding.

For me, it's about practicality and frugality. Do I want something that looks like a traditional wedding gown? Yes. But it has to be at my price, and no lure of a designer's name is going to change my mind. I was even contemplating getting a Chinese knock-off -- and contemplating it quite seriously -- for a while. But I'm not hiring a florist. Flowers are so beautiful in and of themselves, so I'm just going to get a bunch of them a couple days before the wedding and plop them in some containers for the reception. Pay someone to calligraph envelopes in my wedding colors? No, thanks. Do my own calligraphy because I have passable handwriting, and since I'm doing it myself, it may as well be done with a purple pen? Sure!

I have other examples, but you get the point.

Maybe I'm just surrounding myself with inspiration from non-Wedding Industrial Complex sources, so my viewpoint is skewed, but I really think there are a lot of anti-wedding brides (and grooms) out there. Maybe this article will inspire a larger audience to think outside of the box as well.

Photographer! Part 2

2008-09-08T12:34:00.003-04:00

I know I promised the rest of my photographer story a long time ago. Well, today's your lucky day! (Plus, two posts in one day!)

So to recap, we had met with 4 photographers, and #4 was looking like our guy. The next morning, we met with photographer #5, Coury Deeb of 502 Photography, over coffee. My impression of Coury was positive, and I really liked his photos. (With all of our photographer meetings, I had asked to see examples of weddings from start to finish, which I highly recommend you do also.) Coincidentally, he also used to live in Philadelphia, and has done wedding photography there, and I felt like we had the same sort of city vibe going on. Since our venue is downtown with lots of cool architecture, I think he will do a great job of taking advantage of our surroundings and creating some cool, funky shots.

At the time I had first contacted Coury to set up a meeting, I took note of his package prices, but on the morning of our meeting when I went to double-check, I noticed he had raised his prices, and he was now technically out of our budget. I raised this concern with him, and he explained that he had just raised his prices for the first time in nearly two years, but since I had contacted him before his new prices had gone into effect, he would be willing to compromise and meet us halfway. I thought this was extremely fair, and also very gracious of him.

Over the next week, I bugged him for more examples of his work, and he shared some online portfolios from other shoots. Everything was awesome, so we signed the contract! Our package does not inclue an engagement session, but since we already had one, I don't feel the need to have those photos. The other advanatage of an engagement session, of course, is to have the opportunity to work with your photographer and get to know how he or she works and how you interact, before the day of your wedding. We're not going to have that experience, but it's not the end of the world. I can tell by all of our interactions so far that Coury is really fun and easy-going, but ready to take charge when he needs to, and that's just the sort of personality I'm looking for.

(I don't have access to any of his photos to re-post here, and I wouldn't do it without his permission, so if you want to see examples of Coury's work, head on over to his website yourself.)

Here are the other things Coury offers that I thought were really cool:
-No time limit on the wedding day. He's ours for the whole day, which means I won't be worried about a clock ticking down. Don't worry, I won't be mean and make him show up at 6 am or anything!
-Same-day edits that will be shown during the reception. How cool is that! It will be a fun thing for our guests (and us!) to see.
-Rights to all of our digital negatives. This was one of my #1 must-haves when looking for a photographer. Right now, I just don't see a wedding album fitting into our budget or our lifestyles (moving a lot, small apartment), so I would prefer our photos to be on our computers. If we want to get an album later on, or create one ourselves, we can.

I'm really excited to work with Coury next spring. In the meantime, I've been tagging photos I really like in Google Notebook (he said he wouldn't mind if I did that) to show him. Some are poses I think work really well with a large wedding party (which we definitely have), and others are reminders to me of detail shots I want to make sure he gets. This is one aspect of the wedding I'm really, really happy with, and I can't wait to see our photos!

License and Registration, Please

2008-09-08T11:55:00.003-04:00

Well, no license yet, but we did create our registries this weekend.

We knew the weather was going to be bad on Saturday due to Hurricane Hanna, so we planned to spend the day inside with a scanning gun instead. It was a good decision, because the rain was torrential. Sorry, no pictures of Eric scanning a $600 set of pots, but here are some of my thoughts after the whole ordeal:

Don't try to visit too many stores in one day. We planned on two, but the first one had a lot of waiting around (we showed up extra early to Macy's due to the rain, hoping they could squeeze us in, but they couldn't, so we waited around for a while), which killed our energy. Then, at the end of the day, we popped into Target to run an actual errand and I ended up creating a registry there, too. Three in one day is tough on the brain and the feet.
Right now we're registered at four places: Macys, Bed Bath & Beyond, Target, and MyRegistry.com. I wouldn't register at any more stores than that, but I'm wondering if Target is even necessary, because we're only registered for a couple things there (wine glasses), so it could easily be merged into the MyRegistry.com one. That might make things more complicated or less complicated; I'm not sure.
MyRegistry.com is really cool -- it allows you to create a wish list from the entire Internet, which gives us the ability to request things from smaller stores or Internet giants like Amazon. It also adds in the registry function of allowing people to indicate that something has been purchased and remove it from the list -- this is the main difference between MyRegistry and a lot of other online wish lists. I also like it because I can indicate if an item is available from multiple places -- after all, why should someone be forced to buy a Le Creuset dutch oven from Williams Sonoma when the exact same thing is available at other places for less money? That's how I always feel when I look at registry lists, anyway, so the thought that someone might save some money if they are going to get us a gift makes me happy.
Bed Bath & Beyond gave us the royal treatment, offering us coffee and water as we browsed the aisles. It was kind of weird at first, because I've been in BBB dozens of times before and never gotten that kind of attention, and then I realized they saw big dollar signs through us. The coffee was much-needed and much-appreciated, although the realization that I was a walking dollar sign was demoralizing. The funniest part was when the manager came up to us about halfway through and thanked us again for coming, then mentioned he had printed out a list of what we had registered for so far, and said, "I see some opportunities here." I had to hold back a laugh -- I'm sure he did see some big opportunities for sales, but unfortunately, Eric and I just couldn't stomach registering for a sheet set that cost over $100, we didn't like any of the quilts they had, we don't want china, and we have a perfectly fine set of "casual dinnerware," so I guess those are lost opportunities for BBB. Too bad, so sad.
BBB has this cash-back policy that's pretty sweet. If someone gets you a gift off of your registry and you return it to the store, they give you cash back, not just store credit. A friend of mine used this to her advantage -- they registered for an extra set of bedding and a few other things that they knew they didn't want, then returned it for cash and bought themselves a nice new TV. It's a good idea, because no ONE person is going to buy you a new TV, but she had a large extended family that was willing to buy comforters for her. While I don't see anything wrong with what she did, it just wouldn't work for us. We really don't need that much in the way of "big ticket" items, and what we do need, I actually want, and there's no guarantee we're even going to get it. So we won't be scamming BBB, which is unfortunate, because I do like scamming stores.
That reminds me: BBB takes Linens and Things coupons, and they take them no matter what the expiration date says. So never walk into that overpriced store without a 20% coupon in your hand. Your wallet will thank you!
It's easy to become immune to the prices, especially once you've scanned in a set of $600 pots. A Roomba? Sounds great! Only $299 -- it's a steal! Think of the fun we'll have watching it scare the bejeezus out of the cats! Then reality settles back in. If I wouldn't buy it for myself, I wouldn't want anyone else to buy it for me. (And yes, I fully intend to buy those pots if I have to.)
We're double-registered for a couple things between MyRegistry and BBB. This way, if someone isn't comfortable doing the internet thing, they can still go to the store, and then we just have to occasionally edit the registries ourselves if we get a gift off of one but not the other. I read some advice somewhere that suggested that, and it makes sense, so we'll see if it works.
We managed to compromise fairly well, I think. Ideally, I'd like a set of towels in every color of the rainbow, but we narrowed it down and agreed on two -- white and a color. The color isn't my first choice, but it's really pretty. And besides -- if we end up getting a house with an extra bathroom, I'll just be forced to buy some pretty purple towels then :)

great proposal antics

2008-08-31T21:38:00.003-04:00

This is great. Thought YOUR fiance was nervous proposing to you? Nothing compares to the nervousness of lying to an immigration officer and then getting put in a holding room at the border! I love, love, love the letter this guy pre-printed, just for that situation:
That's some pretty good planning: assuming there's a high enough risk of getting caught at the border that you create documentation to explain your sketchiness, yet still being unable to play it cool enough at the border that you DON'T raise suspicions and get caught. Hmm.

By the way, there are 9 months until our wedding. Two more need to pass before I can apply to be a Weddingbee. Well, maybe just one more, assuming a month of review, rejection, and re-application. Hurry up, already!

Dreams/Nightmares

2008-08-24T09:25:00.002-04:00

I woke up this morning in the middle of a really weird dream. We were at my friend Jamie's wedding, but instead of the fancy, black-tie-requested affair that it was, in my dream it was a little more informal -- like most other weddings I've been to, not that it wasn't formal at all. I wasn't a bridesmaid, and for some reason I didn't think that was weird, especially given that in real life I was a bridesmaid, and Eric and I got seated at a table with all of Jamie's friends from when she lived in Ohio -- which has never happened in real life.

Then the DJ started doing his thing, and his thing turned out to be this weird dinner theater stuff, where the whole bridal party was enacting a murder scene or something. I think the premise was that one of the bridesmaids had shot Jamie, and now the place was on fire and a real fire engine even showed up. Except throughout these events, my attitude was, "Oh my god, this DJ is so cheesy and lame. I guess I give him props for actually getting a real fire engine to show up, but this is so obviously all faked."

I don't know what happened next, because I woke up. Definitely a weird dream, and one of those dreams where in the dream, you know it's weird.

The one interesting thing about the dream was the food. The dinner was a buffet, and Eric and I were among the first to get our food. The buffet was a whole series of dishes that had nothing to do with each other but that I knew were Jamie's favorite things (they were dream-Jamie's favorites, anyway). Lots of Indian food (served on too-small platters with too-large serving utensils), and then a huge plate of barbecue ribs, and a bunch of stuff on a ghetto candy buffet
(like, it looked like a kid dumped out his Halloween bag on the table, not one of those nice buffets everyone's doing now). My reaction was positive -- "Oh look, these are all of Jamie's favorite foods! How nice!" even though the food was all pretty unconnected to each other and would have made for a weird dinner.

Maybe it's a sign? We're in the middle stages of picking a caterer and finalizing our wedding menu, so maybe my subconscious wants me to stop figuring out which vegetables go with seared tuna and just serve naan and ribs with dim sum and snow crab legs with drawn butter. Now that's an idea.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I don't think I ever shared my first wedding nightmare with you. It happened about a month ago, and it was one of those totally vivid dreams where everything is REAL (and usually going badly) and there is nothing you can do about it. In the dream, it was my wedding day, only it was actually that same day in July that I was having the dream -- in other words, I had to go ahead with the wedding with only whatever planning had gotten done up to that point. So we had a place and a photographer, and that was about it. For some reason, I wasn't freaking out about the fact that we had no caterer and I can't remember what the wedding dress situation was, but my #1 concern was that my hair was all messed up. [I often sleep with my hair in a loose pony tail to keep it out of my face at night] and I apparently had to get married with my hair looking the way it did at that very moment, because there were no bobby pins or curling irons or anything to be found. So it was going to be messy, half-pony tail half-pull-through-bun, with pieces sticking out everywhere. It was quite frustrating.

So I guess I've passed a milestone of some sort, where the wedding planning anxiety, though still very mild, is important enough to invade my subconscious while I sleep. These are the only two wedding dreams I've had so far, and as long as they keep occurring no more than once a month, I can handle it. Maybe I should pay attention to my subconscious, though, and finish with the catering plans and figure out what I'm going to do with my hair.

Purple dresses, continued

2008-08-20T17:20:00.005-04:00

So you remember my story of the purple bridesmaid dresses, right?

Well, look what showed up in my inbox today:

Ann Taylor has new purple dresses, in a color called concord grape. The picture of the color looks great, but the name worries me, because colors called "grape" are usually a very true purple, and I'm looking for more of an eggplant. But still, I think they're worth a stop into Ann Taylor after I finish my rotation next week.

Unfortunately, they only have those two styles shown in the ad in that purple color, but they also have dresses in a color called "sangria purple," which looks more pinkish, but might be all right in person:

The biggest problem is the price. At $198, I'm not a huge fan. Still, I'll probably go check them out, just for research purposes...

Oh yeah, and the new fall J. Crew purple that came out this month, "plum"? It's a very bright purple.

Still, it might look OK in person. You never can tell. J Crew doesn't carry their special occasions in stores, though; I'd have to order it to be 100% sure, and I'm probably not going to bother.

So Ann Taylor looks promising in the color category, but not so much in the price or selection category, while Mori Lee remains in the lead with color, style selection, and price. We're actually beginning to get to a point where it's prudent to start thinking about bridesmaid dresses for real, so I guess decisions are in order.

Product endorsement: Seaweed Mattifying Day Cream

2008-08-17T17:40:00.003-04:00

I have oily skin. It's time I came right out and admitted it, and I mean admitted it to myself. I tend to deny basic facts about my body, for who knows what reasons. I used to pretend that I had dry face skin, so I would buy heavy-duty moisturizers. What did that do? Just kept me oily all day long and give me more breakouts. One mental breakthrough came a few months ago, when I went to buy a new bottle of Clinique yellow lotion, and the salesperson suggested I try the then-new yellow gel, instead. I love it, and I use it every night after washing my face. I still produce oil, but the gel doesn't add any extra, which is nice. So that was a big moment in my beauty routine.

However, my face still gets very oily throughout the day, so much so that if I use those oil-blotting papers at any given time, I have to use at least two or three to make my face shine-free. In the process of being oily all day, my makeup just falls off my face, so by the end of the day, I look completely makeup-less (except for my eyes, because of an awesome eyeshadow base I discovered a few months ago and now use religiously). Not good. Especially not when thinking about keeping my wedding makeup on all day next May.

However, a few weeks ago I started looking into mattifying products that would keep me oil-free throughout the day, and I found a great one. It's the Body Shop's seaweed mattifying day cream, and it's great! I wash my face in the morning, then apply the cream, and let it dry (which happens very quickly). I then go ahead and put on my trusty Oil of Olay moisturizer with SPF 15 (SPF is a must, throughout the year, and I like this one because it doesn't smell too much like sunscreen).
(The Body Shop has an SPF version of the mattifying cream, but I figured I would try things this way first, since I had a brand new bottle of the Oil of Olay lotion anyway, and so far I'm satisfied with how things are turning out.)

Then I put on my makeup, Bare Escentuals' i.d. Bare Minerals, as usual. At the end of the day, I now look pretty much the same as I did when I walked out the door that morning! The seaweed cream somehow keeps you from producing as much oil, or else it soaks it up if you do produce it, or something like that. On days that are quite sweaty, like when I have to walk a few blocks to catch the bus, I do still get a little oily, but one oil blotting paper takes care of that and my makeup still stays on.

Overall, I'm very happy with this seaweed stuff, and it is definitely going to be in my beauty arsenal on the day of the wedding!

Happy Engageiversary!

2008-08-13T12:51:00.005-04:00

It's a holiday. Really.

One year ago Monday, we got engaged! (I was planning to post this on Monday, but that's how busy I've been this week.)

It's hard to believe, and the year has flown by. Only 9 months to go!

Craigslist

2008-08-02T15:46:00.004-04:00

You most likely know about the beauty of Craigslist. You, like me, might look for cheap-o vendors in the "services" section. You might scroll through the "for sale" section to see if there's anything that strikes your fancy -- vases, decorations, wedding dresses, or unwanted wedding/engagement rings. Or, you might just type "wedding" into the search box and see what pops up. It's fun; I'm sure you know.

But what if you're looking for a particular item, and you've exhausted all of your local search options (Craigslist, consignment shops, yard sales, etc) with no luck? You're pretty sure someone, somewhere, is selling what you're looking for, but you don't know how to find them, short of hitting every single Craigslist site out there.

Enter: Google.

I love you, Google.

First, Google "craigslist." The first link it returns is the one you want. Below it, you'll see hotlinks to some of the biggest/most popular Craigslist locations. Below that, you'll see another search box, that says, "Search craigslist.org."

Use that search box to type in your query. Say, for instance, you're looking for paper lanterns; they're light, they're cheap to ship, and they're likely to be resold after other brides use them in their weddings (yes, they're very trendy right now, but that's not stopping me from using them). Just type in "paper lantern" -- everything that comes back will be from a Craigslist posting. And if, for some reason, you are picky about where it comes from, the first part of each URL it returns will be the host city. I got 148 hits back.

Not bad!

And if you're a Google fiend and like search shortcuts, here's the one you want:

search term site:craigslist.org (italics not necessary, of course)

A Craigslist-specific search every time!

Is there anything worse

2008-07-30T12:34:00.002-04:00

...than a pregnant bridesmaid?

"Oh, the horror! The tragedy!"

Screen shot from Psycho, stolen from here.

Please, give me a break.

I've had this post brewing in the back of my mind for a while, due to a situation one of my bridesmaids is in, but I was spurred to actually write it after reading a particularly hot thread on the Weddingbee discussion boards. Here is the original post:

a bit of a long story but bear with me...

I am getting married in March 09 and have three bridesmaids.

About 6 weeks ago bm#3 came to me and asked if it was ok if she was 3 months pregnant during my wedding (at this point she was just PLANNING to be) . Of course I said yes as i knew it would make her happy and 3 months really isn't that much. A fortnight later I heard her talking to bm#1 and saying that she was planning on being six months pregnant at my wedding. I thought this was a bit strange as she had said three months to me. I let it slide as it seemed to make her happy. A fortnight ago we all went out dress shopping (bm#1, bm#2, bm#3 and me). As they were trying on dresses she announced that she could not fit into this dress at eight months pregnant.

That night i decided to ring her and have a chat. I told her that i was worried about her being 8 months pregnant at my wedding as it is a very long day and we will be getting in and out of limo's all day, standing for long periods and i didn't want to stress her out heavily pregnant and stress the unborn baby. Also that there is a higher chance of her having to go into hospital with complications or labour etc and her to miss our wedding. Her husband is best man so of course we could lose our best man too.

She was very rude to me and said pretty much that it was happening whether i liked it or not. I couldn't seem to get it across to her how worried I really was. I then wrote her a 2 page letter explaining my feelings and how i was upset she dismissed my feelings.

She came around last night with her husband to tell us she was 6 weeks pregnant and that the baby was due three days after the wedding date.

What should i do? I don't see how she can remain a bridesmaid at 9 months pregnant. I don't know if she will even be able to stand three days before the birth. Also there is a high chance we will lose our best man too...

I'm very upset. She has hurt my feelings really bad and shes due to have a baby three days after my wedding. Can I have some advice please?

Now, I'm not actually going to respond directly to that post, mostly because I have only negative things to say and I'm sure the original poster would find out about it and would flame me for all of eternity. I'm instead going to write you a little guide of what I think you should do if one of your bridesmaids tells you that she's pregnant. I'm not talking about that poster. I am going to try hard to be objective and polite, and I hope not to offend. However, I am a little snarky and sarcastic; it's hard to do anything about that.

Here is what I think about bridesmaids:

They are women you feel very close to for some reason or another -- friends and family who you enjoy being with, and who you want to honor by giving them a special role in your wedding.
They are not slaves, or even poorly compensated employees to be used at your discretion.
They have their own lives -- whether it be school, work, families, whatever. Just because you got engaged and your own life is now tied up in wedding planning does not mean theirs should be, too.
They, like you (most likely), are not made of money.
Yes, there are certain things a bridesmaid is "supposed" to do (see here or here if you don't know what they are), but you still have to remember that this is reality, and things need to be reasonable.

So, if your bridesmaid (and let's assume she's someone close to you, like, say, a really really really good friend you've had for at least 10 years, and not some co-worker you asked to stand up for you just to make the male and female sides of the wedding party even -- another ridiculous thing, if you ask me) announces that she's pregnant, here is what you do:

1. Say, CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!
2. Act as though you are NOT getting married for just 5 minutes (really, you can do it, I promise), and ask all the questions that would be appropriate if your really really really good friend just told you she was pregnant. You know:

How far along are you?
How have you been feeling so far?
Is there anything I can do for you?
Would you like me to buy you some pickles? (Haha)
Do you know if it's a boy or girl? (Some parents don't like this question, so be prepared; however, if they say, "We're not going to find out ahead of time," don't respond with, "Why not?" Instead, say, "Well then I'll just buy presents in pink, blue, yellow, green, AND purple to be prepared!"
Can I help plan the baby shower?

3. Be happy.
4. Don't say anything about your wedding. At all. The bridesmaid will bring it up. Yes, she will. Because, you see, she's been agonizing over the fact that she has to tell you, the bride, that she's pregnant, and she's worried about how you are going to react. And you should feel 100% ashamed that she has been, in between puking her guts out and craving pickles, stressed about how YOU are going to react.

Now, once the subject of pregnancy + wedding has been brought up, you should be as accommodating as you possibly can. No exceptions. If the bridesmaid dresses haven't been bought, keep a pregnant belly in the back of your mind as you peruse dresses. Ask if the designer has a maternity line. Ask if you can purchase extra fabric and have the chosen dress altered to accommodate a baby bump. If the dresses have been bought, then you and your bridesmaid can scheme about how best to address the situation -- order a larger size in the same dress, order a maternity dress from another designer, order extra fabric for alterations -- whatever it takes. Do not make your bridesmaid feel fat, ugly, or anything other than the glowing mother-to-be that she is. What kind of friend are you, anyway?

If your bridesmaid suggests that she might not feel comfortable standing at the front of the aisle for the ceremony, then you can have a discussion about "duties." (God, I hate that word when it comes to bridesmaids.) Again, be as accommodating as you can. If she wants to walk down the aisle, stand for as long as she can, then sit in a reserved spot in the front row, fine. If she wants to walk down the aisle and immediately sit, fine. If she wants to walk down the aisle but not wear anything resembling what the rest of the bridesmaids are wearing, fine. If she wants to be a reader instead of a bridesmaid, fine. Start by decreasing her suggested "duties" only slightly, and see what she wants to do. If you start off with, "Well, why don't you just take it easy and be a reader instead?" she's going to interpret it as, "You're going to be huge on my wedding day and I don't want people looking at you, so you can't be a bridesmaid anymore." Don't question it -- that's the hidden meaning that the pregnancy hormones have made her think is there (and that I, negative person that I am, read into your suggestion also), so be prepared for an equally rude response. You deserve it.

If YOU, for some ridiculous, brain-fart reason, suggest without provocation that she should decrease her responsibilities in any way, or, god forbid, suggest that she NOT be your bridesmaid anymore because she is pregnant, you should be taken out and shot.

Yeah, she looks a little uncomfortable, but she obviously survived! (Source)

Do not, for one minute, suggest that the "stress" of having to get into and out of a limo might be cause of concern for the pregnant bridesmaid and her unborn baby. Give me a break. Yes, someone who is 9 months pregnant probably can't stand for as long as someone who isn't pregnant, and she might need a few more breaks and water (and then potty breaks) than the rest of you, but she is no way endangering the health of anyone, born or unborn, by acting as your bridesmaid on the day of the wedding. (This is all assuming a standard, healthy pregnancy, of course.) If she needs to sit down a little longer than everyone else, FINE. If she feels horrendously queasy the day of the wedding and stays in bed a little longer than everyone else, FINE. She'll meet you at the salon if she needs to get her hair done (wait -- you didn't FORCE everyone to get their hair done, did you? Shame on you.).

I mean, say a bridesmaid got food poisoning the morning of the wedding. Would you throw a fit, ask why she ate that questionable egg, throw away her dress and refuse to let her walk down the aisle? No! You'd let her stay in bed, recover with some Gatorade, find her a doctor if she needed one, and get on with life. If she walks, she walks. If she doesn't, then go visit her in the hospital as soon as you can. This is really no different. Are you doing yourself any favors by worrying about all the things that might go wrong with a bridesmaid on the day of the wedding? No.

Now, even if your bridesmaid is 100% sure that she can fully participate on the wedding day and is 100% excited to hold your bouquet while you say your vows, things can still happen. A few months from now, she might realize that she doesn't think she's going to be able to do what she previously told you she could. Give her a break, and let her back out if she wants to, but I would seriously consider going back to the paragraph above where I tell you alternative things for her to do. If she does back down, don't take her name off the program, for goodness sake -- that's really bitchy. You still wanted her to be a bridesmaid when all of this started, right? That's what this is about.

If the wedding is out of town, she might not be able to come at the last minute (especially if it involves flying). Already printed the programs? Don't worry -- no one will notice a missing bridesmaid based on the program, and if they do, they'll assume something came up. Actually, they probably won't care (gasp!). If she can come, and she'll be majorly pregnant, she should talk with her Ob/Gyn about having a backup doctor available in the city she will be visiting and she should scope out a hospital, just in case. If her water breaks, don't worry -- someone will call an ambulance and she will be taken to the hospital. People might look at her and talk about her for 5-10 minutes, but don't worry -- all eyes will return to you when you dance your first dance or cut the cake or toss the bouquet or whatever else it is you have to do.

The bottom line is, if she wants to do it and thinks she can, who are you to say she can't?

The bride? Give me a break.

Pregnant bridesmaid? No problem!

(Source)

Now that I'm done with my rant, I have to say that it was brought on originally by my FSIL, who recently announced her second pregnancy and is due in January. Congratulations!!! She won't be pregnant for our wedding, but instead will have a 4-month-old (who I predict will be a boy, and I'm totally going to spring a baby tux on him if it is!). However, she will be pregnant when she is in a friend's wedding in September, and there have been issues (mostly dress-related). She told Eric and I about the pregnancy pretty early on, and I witnessed her being stressed about the prospect of telling the other bride (and the bride's mother, who apparently is the bridezilla-esque one of the pair). Their bridesmaid dresses had already been ordered, and the dress shop ladies were quite rude and disgusted at having to deal with a pregnant bridesmaid. Luckily, it has all worked out, but I think -- in my opinion only -- a lot of bridesmaid stress could have been relieved by a more accommodating bride/MOB.

(Source)

If I were planning a bachelorette party

2008-07-29T13:36:00.007-04:00

If I were planning a bachelorette party weekend getaway (and I'm not), for someone like me (but not necessarily me), here is what I would plan.

(Inspired by the last few weeks of living at the shore and enjoying the nightlife right next door in Atlantic City.)

We would all get together in Atlantic City. Yeah, yeah, it's not as glamorous as Vegas, and it's got a bad reputation for being seedy and slimey, but so did Las Vegas before 10 years ago! Take it from a (kind of) insider; A.C. isn't that bad. And it's definitely getting better, exponentially, and quickly!

(And for me and my girls, AC is easy for everyone to get to, but still a good getaway spot.)

We'd stay at the Borgata, which is the city's BEST hotel and casino. Second maybe only to its brand new sister hotel located right next door, The Water Club. When the Borgata opened in 2003, it had the best commercials, with these hip 20-somethings all riding Vespas from Philly down to AC. Not going to lie; we bought into the marketing and were sucked in. I have some good blackjack and poker memories from that casino, and I've stayed there before as well, courtesy of a poker rate, and it was a GREAT hotel room.

The Borgata (left) and The Water Club (right). Picture from TripAdvisor.

So anyway, since money's no object in this little imagination exercise, we'd upgrade and stay at the Water Club. Dinner on Friday would be relaxed, since we'd all just be arriving -- maybe we'd go to The Continental at the Pier Shops at Caesars. There are great views overlooking the ocean, and the food ("global tapas") is great -- yes, it's the same Stephen Starr-branded Continental as in Philly. Or Buddakan, or somewhere else fun and girly and celebratory.

The Continental A.C.

Friday night we'd just relax and chill. Hang out on the boardwalk and have some salt water taffy and play mini golf, or maybe go back to the hotel to play some blackjack or roulette. Nothing too risky, though :)

Saturday would be full of options: Relax poolside at one of the Water Club's indoor pools, or more likely, in one of the cabanas by the outdoor pool. Enjoy some snacks and drinks poolside, and just generally relax. Alternatively, we could take a short drive into Brigantine or into downtown A.C. to hang out on the beach. Personally, I'd choose Brigantine for boardwalk-free beach time. If anyone felt like splurging, there is supposed to be an amazing spa at the Water Tower.

Saturday's dinner would be a foodie experience -- the Bobby Flay or new Wolfgang Puck restaurant in the hotel. YUM. (Is A.C. trying to pull a Vegas with fancy hotels and big-name restaurant stars? It sure seems like it, and I think it's a great idea, personally.)

Saturday night would be the main event -- dancing and all-night entertainment. Depending on the bride, I would either plan to stay at the Borgata and party at one of their clubs (which are legitimately cool, not your average casino club, so I've heard), or else drag her out to one of those ridiculous male strip shows. Or, if you were planning an A.C. bachelorette party right now, you could go to Thunder From Down Under, the Australian male revue! Standard bachelorette embarrassment required, of course.

Oh my god, I can't even keep a straight face looking at this photo (source).

After a long night of dancing and drinking (it probably wouldn't last too long, we're all getting much older than we want to admit these days), we would fall asleep on the luxurious, comfortable hotel beds.

Sunday would be necessarily low-key, complete with dark sunglasses and coffee. More lounging by the pool? Or shopping, perhaps? We could head back to the Pier Shops, or else go explore the new Atlantic City outlets. Confession: I've already spent a bunch of money at the J. Crew outlet, I've got my eye on a wristlet from the Coach outlet, and I haven't even had a chance to set foot into the Banana Republic outlet yet.

Other food options (hey, you have to eat more than just dinner, right?) include our Brigantine favorite, Primo Pizza; Little Saigon, a Vietnamese BYO (and lots of other Vietnamese restaurants), the classic Jersey diners, and the delicious-but-not-so-nutritious boardwalk favorites. Oh, and who could forget a late-night Wawa run?

So there you have it. Just thought I'd share. It's a really expensive weekend (mostly the hotel and the expensive restaurants), but it would be a fun trip to plan!

Oh, and in case you were wondering, I'm not a spokesperson for the Borgata or anything (hmm, think they'd pay me?), but it honestly is the best hotel/casino in the city, it has great marketing (which this city sorely needs), and it's doing good things for the city by building newer and better establishments and raising the bar on dining and entertainment.

Oh, and did I mention that at night it's lit up in purple and green?

(Bad picture, I know. But I was driving and trying to snap at the same time, the building was far away, and I wouldn't know how to make the purple neon lights look purple and not blue no matter what.)

300 Days!

2008-07-28T14:19:00.002-04:00

And counting!

300 doesn't have any particular significance, other than being a nice, round number -- the kind I like. One of my friends and bridesmaids, on the other hand, prefers palindromes.

300 days. It actually doesn't sound like that much -- until you remember that a whole year is 365 days. So that means we're only 10 months out -- which still isn't that much in the realm of wedding planning.

I have nothing more to comment about this, so I'm just going to stop now.

Botox for the bridesmaids?

2008-07-24T10:43:00.003-04:00

Holy #$!%, this New York Times article blew me away.

Skin Deep -- It's Botox for you, Dear Bridesmaids

I was planning to write, at some point, about how ridiculous a lot of brides are about a lot of things when it comes to bridesmaids -- forcing everyone to match is one thing, but forcing them all to match in $300 dresses that they have to pay for? Demanding they all get particular hair styles when they've managed to choose their own hairstyles for at least 20 years on their own? Freaking out about a bridesmaid's pregnancy and "how it will affect the wedding" instead of just saying "congratulations"? That's what I was going to talk about.

But this is 100 times better. Asking your bridesmaids to get boob jobs for the wedding??!? Suggesting that everyone gets Botox -- even if the bride pays for it?!?!?

I don't really have the words to talk about this issue. I just hope that all the sane people in the world realize that this is really f*cking ridiculous.

Real Men Wear Gowns

2008-07-24T10:02:00.003-04:00

So... it turns out I'll look at anything that shows a woman wearing a veil and a white dress.

I was browsing through CNN.com today and noticed an ad off on the sidebar that showed a woman wearing a veil. The ad read, "Real men wear gowns," and standing in front of her was a man wearing ... not a wedding gown, but a hospital gown.

Weddings AND health? Now you've got my interest!

I clicked on over, and it brought me to the website of AHRQ (the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality), which I am already familiar with (they publish healthcare data and put out guidelines for preventive health screening; I use their electronic preventive services selector on my PDA regularly). But I hadn't heard about this health campaign before.

Real Men Wear Gowns is aimed at middle-aged men, it appears (based on the images, information, and videos), but its message is important for all men. It shows guys doing normal things -- playing with their kids, walking their daughters down the aisle, dancing with their wives -- while wearing a hospital gown. You can watch the videos here.

A screenshot from one of the videos.

Men are notorious, as a group, for not going to the doctor until they're very sick -- at which point, valuable opportunities to prevent disease onset or provide early treatment have been lost. It's a stereotype -- but one I've seen numerous times -- to have a male patient say, when asked why he came to the office/ER, "I wasn't going to, but my wife made me." And these are guys who often are in the midst of a serious problem -- like an active heart attack!

Too often, men try to "bear the pain," or "see if it will go away." But they shouldn't. Know the warning signs of heart attacks and strokes, and get screened regularly for overweight/obesity, high cholesterol, hypertension, colorectal cancer, STDs and HIV, depression, and AAA. Tell your fiance, brother, father, FFIL, and anyone else you know the importance of these tests. Really.

It's perfectly reasonable for a young person to have a cholesterol test done once before the age of 25 -- you should know your cholesterol score! It's better to start cutting out a cheeseburger a week and replacing it with something high in fiber now than it is to wait until you're 40 and have 20 years of damage built up.

And women, don't think you're out of the loop; there is a site for Real Women, too. Get Pap tests regularly, get the HPV vaccine, and see an Ob/Gyn before you get pregnant -- there are a lot of things that ideally should be done before a woman gets pregnant, but since so many pregnancies are unplanned, they aren't done until the first obstetrical visit. Start taking a folic acid supplement now; there's no reason not to. And of course, get all the same screening tests as the men -- hypertension, high cholesterol, colorectal cancer, HIV, etc.

Because you're planning to marry your sweetheart for life, and I know you want it to be a long and healthy one.

Miss Manners says

2008-07-23T09:42:00.003-04:00

I love Miss Manners. In fourth grade I read all of her books. Her well-hidden sarcastic wit is just awesome. That's why she's in my Google Reader. To be honest, I often don't read the columns, especially because they are fed as headlines-only, and it's kind of a pain to click over to read the whole thing, but every now and then I catch up on a backlog of them.

Today, it was the headline that caught my eye: Tentative Steps at the Wedding Reception

So naturally, I clicked on over.

Dear Miss Manners:

I am curious about the tradition of wedding dances. We have the happy couple's first dance. Then there is the father/daughter dance followed by the mother/son. By now, all the guests at the reception are happily chatting among themselves, no longer paying attention, and we segue into the son and mother-in-law, etc.

What is appropriate for an evening wedding with a band or DJ? How long should the dances be, and how many should there be?
The idea is for the bridal couple to open the dancing, not to give a private dance featuring their relatives while the guests' function is to stand around admiring them.

Or not. No wonder couples confess to nervousness about the simple act of dancing with each other. Getting married is not a sufficient qualification to stage a dance performance before an audience.

Miss Manners gathers that you have heard about those lists in which the order of dancing is specified for a long line of relatives, regardless of whether they are on speaking terms. Such overplanning arises from the suspicion that the gentlemen of the wedding party are innocent of the requirement to dance with the principal ladies instead of only following their personal preferences.
The idea is for the parents to dance with the couple and one another, and, by the way, it would be nice if the gentlemen asked Granny to dance, too. And for the guests to be treated as guests.

Guests should not be kept waiting, even the full length of one dance. Halfway through the bridal couple's dance, the bride's father cuts in to dance with his daughter and the bereft bridegroom turns to his mother. (This can also be done with the respective in-laws first.) At this point, the bridesmaids and groomsmen should take to the dance floor and encourage the other guests to follow.

Presumably, the bridal couple's enjoyment is in gazing at each other, not in being gazed at.

I believe Miss Manners has presumed correctly. In one wedding I was in, we (the bridal party) were instructed to begin dancing halfway through the first dance, on the DJ's cue, and then the DJ encouraged everyone else to join in as well. It worked really well, because the song was on the long side for a first dance song (Call and Answer, Barenaked Ladies). Other couples have advised us to choose a short first dance song for the same reason. Another way to divert attention? Do what Mrs. Hibiscus and Mrs. Eggplant (from Weddingbee, DUH!) did and have voice-overs played during the first dance. You get to dance, but your guests will most likley be paying attention to what's being said (just go listen at the links; you'll understand more clearly what I'm talking about).

In any case, it appears Miss Manners has spoken, and just as I always eat asparagus with my fingers as she says (go Google it yourself!), I will keep this in mind as well.

Not that we can decide on a first dance song, anyway.

Any first dance song suggestions, or other ways to make it less embarrassing?

Photographer!

2008-07-22T20:15:00.006-04:00

We booked our photographer a few months ago, but I realize I never told you! There are tons of photographers in our area, at all price levels and styles, so it was a huge headache for me to sort through them all and pick ones to meet with. Craigslist, especially, is a treasure trove of "budget" photographers. A big dilemma was the fact that I really really wanted good photos, and wanted a photographer I enjoyed working with (based on a wedding I attended a couple years ago and our experience with our free engagement photos), but was on a major budget. I like the "photojournalistic" style for the photos it produces, but I need some direction like a traditional photographer would do. Plus, the term "photojournalistic" doesn't really mean anything now, since everyone's using it.

In my usual OCD style, I compiled a spreadsheet with every photographer's info and prices -- again, just as it had been with venue searching, it was hard to compare apples to apples. Some photographers worked for 4 hours, others for 8, others for an unlimited amount of time on the day of. Some included an engagement session, and others didn't. Same with printed proofs or albums. To be honest, albums weren't high on our priority list, but a decent amount of time and rights to the digital files of the final photos were, so that was taken into account as well. Finally, I narrowed it down to five.

I met with Photographer #1 with my mom when she came to visit a few months ago, and she was really great -- very sweet and easy-going, with a great portfolio, but she was a little out of our price range. I then met with Photographer #2 on my own -- she was based out of Cincinnati, and her website looked good, and she sent me a DVD of some of her portfolios in the mail. She was unable to meet with me at any halfway point between Cincinnati and Louisville the weekend I wanted to meet, but I drove up to Cincinnati and met her at a Starbucks. I arrived a little early and got a coffee; she called to say she was going to be late, which was OK. She finally arrived, explained that she had had babysitting issues with her daughter (uh oh), handed me some albums to look through, and went up to get a coffee. This Starbucks was SOOO crowded, though, and by the time she came back with her drink, I had looked through the albums completely, and twice. The fact that she was newer to the business than I thought, combined with an already-bad first impression having to do with an inability to find childcare (although I am totally understanding of people having kids and plans changing at the last minute!), combined with the fact that she seemed more nervous than I was during our meeting, all left me feeling like I had driven to Cincinnati for nothing. I should have visited the then-brand new Ikea to make the trip worth it, but instead, I drove home (although I did get Chipotle while I was in Cincy, since there isn't one in Louisville!).

Then I met with Photographer #3 on my own as well, and I liked him. I did have a few reservations -- he was just getting started, although he had a lot of photos to show me, and something about his personality wasn't quite right for the person I wanted shooting our wedding day photos. Like, he'd be fun to hang out and have a beer with, but that personality quality wouldn't necessarily have a calming effect on me, which I think I'm going to need on the wedding day. Nevertheless, his prices were cheap, and I've heard over and over again from people who have booked photographers before they were well known and ended up with amazing photography at great prices. So when Eric came to visit a couple weekends after that, he met with Photographer #3 as well (also alone; I was stuck seeing psychiatric patients in the office).

Eric didn't get the best vibe from Photographer #3, and felt he didn't seem as qualified as he would have liked. He also agreed with me that I am a person who, if she doesn't completely trust someone she's working with, will attempt to take over and direct things herself -- and I don't need to be doing that on the day of my own wedding! So I definitely need to be working with someone that I trust and who will have a calming presence, because I'll most likely need it.

Together we interviewed Photographer #4, who was really great. It was James from J Higgins Photography, and we met him in his studio (he runs a framing studio as well). I liked everything about him -- he's been in business a long time, but has continually kept up to date with techniques and trends, and had lots of great photos. He was very calm, cool, and collected -- completely the opposite of Photographer #3! He offered a wide range of packages at different price points, and the one we were thinking of had a couple items we weren't interested in (like a signature matte), but he said it would be no problem to use them as credit toward prints or extra hours of service instead. We left that meeting feeling great and J Higgins was, at that point, at the top of our list.

We had one more photographer meeting scheduled for the next morning, so we put off the search for the night and headed off to see Avenue Q with our friends David and Amy. You should totally see this show, by the way. I loved it.

So who was Photographer #5 and who did we finally pick? Stay tuned to find out!

Honeymoon remorse

2008-07-17T10:21:00.002-04:00

A long time ago, I decided I didn't want a relaxing, beach honeymoon. We have beach access pretty much any time we want it, and my idea of a vacation is generally to tour new countries, not to lie on a beach and read. Eric went along with my thought, and we brainstormed places to honeymoon.

We wanted it to be somewhere that neither of us had been before; that knocked out Italy, London, Paris, parts of Spain, Brussels, as well as Hong Kong and Taiwan. We also didn't want to have to deal too much with a foreign language, so that knocked out most of the rest of Asia. I can get by in French, but I'd feel badly for both of us if I had to be translating menus for a whole trip, so I crossed other parts of France off the list as well; the same went for Eric and Spanish. The thought of me actually having to rely on my Chinese for an entire vacation was just headache-inducing, so that was off the table from the start.

Scotland was a good contender (and actually, I've had it in the back of my mind as a honeymoon destination for a while; I ripped out a feature on it from a 2004 issue of Modern Bride I got while helping to plan my friend Karen's wedding). We both have Scottish in our heritages (we both have Scottish last names), and I thought it would be cool to go explore a country that we both have ties to, as well as spoke English.

I kind of figured it would be expensive, but we also don't need to live in the lap of luxury for the entire honeymoon, so I figured there would be ways to cut corners here and there. I really liked the idea of renting a car and driving all over, exploring the lochs and the highlands and the lowlands. We could stay in a castle (maybe even a haunted castle!), and relax if we got sick of driving on the wrong side of the road.

Then I set up a honeymoon registry, on Honeyfund. I put a link to it on our wedding website. I set out to think of cute honeymoon activities to register for ($50 for Holly to try haggis; $100 for squeamish Eric to try it; $40 for a meal at McDonald's when both of us got sick of haggis). I registered us for GPS for the rental car so we wouldn't get lost while driving on the wrong side of the road; I calculated what a tank of petrol would cost. In doing so, I came across this blog, in which the blogger had already calculated petrol costs. It's over $8 a gallon. YIKES!

Then I even went so far as to buy plane tickets from Skyauction.com, a site I have used regularly in the past that has great deals. Back in April, I won an auction for 2 tickets on Virgin Atlantic for $1522. Woohoo! It was roundtrip from NYC to Heathrow (and we could leave from DC instead for only a small fee). I figured there would be an easy way to get to Scotland from London, and everything would be fine.

Then I got buyer's remorse. At that time, more than a year before the wedding/honeymoon, I couldn't even check plane ticket prices to see if I was truly getting a deal. I would have to wait until at least the middle of June, if not July (some airlines won't post tickets more than 11 months in advance). Oh my god, what had I done? Where had this sense of urgency to book tickets come from?

Luckily, in the weeks since, gas prices have only continued to climb, and I became confident that there was no way a plane ticket to Europe next May could possibly be LESS expensive than one this May (and I had gotten a good deal compared with this year's prices), so at least that was good.

But then, I got not just buyer's remorse, but honeymoon remorse. After spending a month in rural Kentucky, then driving to Philadelphia, flying to Brussels for a week, and freaking out about studying for Step 2 of my boards, applying to residency, and figuring out what I'm going to do for the rest of my life, I realized that sitting on a beach really isn't all that bad. I asked Eric if the whole "touring a new country is better than sitting on a beach" thing was his opinion as much as mine, and he confessed it wasn't. Sitting on a beach is just fine with him, as it turns out.

And think about all the cool places with beaches that still offer tourism opportunities: Thailand, South America, Africa, the South Pacific, the Galapagos Islands. The list is quite extensive. A friend recommended Thailand. Another recommended Honduras. Two of my cousins have gone to the Maldives for their honeymoons and can't stop gushing. Miss Coconut on Weddingbee yesterday posted about Costa Rica, and I checked out the hotel she was staying at, and it looks great. But how to get out of our plane tickets to London!?!?!?!?

I emailed Skyauction a couple weeks ago, and asked what their refund policy was. I wasn't too optimistic, but I figured I could always explain that it was going to be a honeymoon trip and the honeymoon wasn't happening. I wasn't above breaking out the big guns and crying over email that the wedding was off and I didn't know what I would do if they wouldn't refund me my money, either.

In the meantime, it became possible to check ticket prices to London. It turns out that for our prospective honeymoon dates next May, NY to London on Virgin Atlantic costs between $800 and $1050/person roundtrip. So we did get a deal! It would still be a hassle to get from London to Scotland, but whatever. Our original-but-now-backup plan was acceptable, if not ideal.

Skyauction got back to me this morning, though. They can withdraw me from my auction (because while I had paid, I had never completed the process by submitting dates and receiving tickets) with only a $95 cancellation fee.

Normally, $95 is a lot of money to me. Especially for stupid shit like cancellation fees. But this morning, it might as well have been 95 cents, because that's how relieved I was. And no crying and fake "the wedding's off" stories needed, to boot!

The honeymoon registry link has been removed from the wedding website (I'm not convinced it's the best idea for us anyway, even once we decide on a honeymoon location). Scotland isn't completely off the table, but wouldn't it be nice to book a plane ticket that leaves from Louisville and lands in Glasgow, without us worrying about how to do all the in-between stuff ourselves? I'm pretty sure I want to go somewhere more interesting than the Carribean, but I've also never been to the Carribean, so maybe I shouldn't be so quick to judge.

So now the brainstorming begins all over again. Any suggestions?

EtOH!

2008-07-15T23:23:00.004-04:00

That would be ethanol, aka alcohol. Woohoo!

Last fall, my brother had a part-time job at a liquor store to make some extra cash. It sounded like a pretty easy job for him: some stocking, manning the cash register of a not-horrendously-busy liquor store, helping to run wine tasting parties, and learning a decent amount about wine. It was a great job for me, because he got to purchase things at wholesale, and I had a wedding to plan.

Going into venue hunting, we knew that we had to be allowed to bring in our own alcohol, to take advantage of our amazing hook-up. I had a pretty good idea of how ridiculously pricey catered alcohol can be, and I didn't want to have to skimp in this area.

[Glassworks actually is supposed to charge us a $300 fee for using our own alcohol, but we will still come out ahead. Plus, at this point, they haven't charged us the fee, and I'm not really sure how they are going to figure out whose alcohol we are using. Oh well. We'll see what happens come May.]

It was pretty fun to come up with our bar needs. We knew we were going to have an open bar, and wanted to offer liquor, wine, and beer. I had alcohol options from two different hotels I had (very) briefly considered, so I could see what they brands they suggested for their "house," "call," and "premium/top shelf" liquor packages.

Next I checked out online drink calculators. Evite has a drink calculator, and I also found this calculator and guide. I also found out that even though evite gives you results in whole liters, alcohol generally comes in either 750mL or 1.75L bottles, not 1L ones. It was a little stressful to try to run all the calculations not really knowing how many people we're going to have (150 is the number we're using, but it will likely be less than that), but in the end, a good rule of thumb is that too much alcohol is always better than too little :)

We bought the liquor first, back in January, because it was convenient for my brother to do so and I knew we could store the liquor safely for pretty much forever. I also figured that we should probably have enough for two separate bars, because I hate long bar lines, so I bought accordingly. Here's what we got:

Two 1.75L bottles of Smirnoff vodka
Two 1.75L bottles of Tanqueray gin
Two 1.75L bottles of Knob Creek bourbon
One 1.75L bottle of Bacardi rum
One 750mL bottle of Bacardi rum
Two 1.75L bottles of Johnnie Walker red scotch
(We also already had an unoped 1.75L bottle of Bacardi, so now we're saving that for the wedding as well.)

I didn't really feel any need to have tequila, since (in my opinion) they're pretty much best used for margaritas, and we'll have enough mixed drink options without margaritas, and the only other good use for them is shots, and, well... tequila shots and I do not get along. (Actually, we got along fabulously initially, but then things take a turn for the worse.)

The bourbon was a little stressful; Kentucky is obvious bourbon country, and we needed a good one. However, since a lot of bourbons aren't marketed aggresively outside of Kentucky, the store where my brother worked didn't keep a lot of them in stock. (And to be completely honest, he wasn't really supposed to be buying things at cost; as long as he was buying from the store's stock, though, the assistant manager didn't mind. Because of this, though, we were trying to avoid having him place any special orders.) But, Knob Creek is a good bourbon, so I'm happy.

We weren't planning to buy the wine or beer until next spring, closer to the wedding, because I was worried about storing it. However, my brother called me back in April to announce that he had given his two weeks' notice, and that if I wanted wine, I should act soon. Yikes!

When it comes to wine, I do not like merlot or chardonnay, which are the standard wine offerings at a lot of weddings I've been to. My go-to choices are pinot noir and pinot grigio, and I have a few other reds I'm partial to as well. Eric has a broader palate than I do, but in general we agree on wines, which always makes it nice when we order a bottle at a restaurant. Don't get me wrong, though; I am by no means a wine connoisseur, and if I were doing a blind taste test, I can't guarantee that I wouldn't declare a merlot quite palatable.

In the end, the wedding isn't all about me (shocker!), or even about me and Eric, so we're providing a wider selection of wine. Here's what we got:

Three 1.5L bottles of Rex Goliath chardonnay
Four 1.5L bottles of Yellow Tail chardonnay
Six 1.5L bottles of Fish Eye pinot grigio
Six 750mL bottles of Rex Goliath pinot noir
Six 750mL bottles of Yellow Tail pinot noir
Three 1.5L bottles of Rex Goliath cabernet sauvignon
Three 1.5L bottles of Yellow Tail cabernet sauvignon
Six 750mL bottles of Yellow Tail rose

These are brands (Rex Goliath, especially) that we like a lot, so I'm comfortable with what we got. I know they're not super amazing wines if you have much of a wine palate, but I'm also fairly certain that none of our guests is really going to be able to tell the difference. I also know that a lot of caterers offer simply a merlot and chardonnay in a "house" brand of some sort, so I feel that what we're doing is at least a step and a half above that.

We also went ahead and got champagne; just enough for everyone to have a toast. At first, my brother recommended Freixenet extra dry; it's a cava, which is a Spanish sparkling wine. I was able to get my hands on a bottle before my friend Jamie's wedding back in April, and we all had a taste. It was a little too dry for my liking, and I was going to stress about choosing one that I really liked, when again, I realized that at a lot of fancy hotel weddings (such as the black tie one that Jamie had), they simply offer whatever their house champagne is, and no one has a choice. So I let go, told my brother it was too dry, and when he suggested the St. Hilaire semi-sweet as an alternate, we went with it. In the end, it really doesn't matter.

All the liquor and wine is now sitting in my parents' basement, in the storage closet behind the Christmas decorations, and my brother even bought a dehumidifier for the closet to keep everything nice and un-damp (my parents' house is in Maryland, very near to two different rivers and the Chesapeake Bay, so un-damp is hard to come by), and someone will be driving it to Louisville next May.

It doesn't look like too much here, but I didn't open up all those boxes to take a good look; the Christmas decorations were in the way and I didn't feel like moving them all!

The only thing we have left to buy is beer, and we're definitely going to wait on that, because storing beer is asking for trouble. We're going to provide mostly Yuengling, which can't be bought in Kentucky, so someone will be driving more alcohol west come May. I guess we'll also provide a light beer of some sort, but we'll most likely just get that locally.

We'll also buy some mixers, like vermouth for martinis, and maybe some liqueurs, but maybe not. We'll also have sodas and something else non-alcoholic, like iced tea or lemonade, and we'll most likely buy all of that at one of the club stores in the weeks before the wedding. One of the caterers we're interviewing right now pointed out that to have both the ceremony and ensuing cocktail hour on the roof, an extra bar would either need to be pre-set up on the roof (meaning more money for another bartender and a bar in our ceremony space), or we should opt for passed drinks only during cocktail hour. I really like the idea of passed drinks for cocktail hour, because then we have an excuse to come up with signature drinks! Right now I'm thinking about mint juleps (naturally) and mojitos, as well as mint iced tea (sense a theme?).

All of that alcohol cost us about $750, and will create (roughly) 500 drinks. The hotel caterer, on the other hand, would have charged us $6 per drink! I'm pretty sure we have way too much alcohol (we don't even have the beer yet!), but better safe than sorry. I also know we have some groomsmen who would be more than happy to take some of the extra home.

Archivers Bridal Showcase

2008-07-14T16:04:00.005-04:00

Before I left Louisville for my extended trip all over every where, I went to a wedding craft workshop at Archivers. It's a pretty neat store, dedicated to scrapbooking, card making, and other paper crafts. The workshop was pretty straight-forward: a representative went through some pictures and ideas for wedding invitations and associated stationery projects, a lot of which I had seen before, but it was nice to see the emphasis on DIY. Some were really easy, and even someone with no card-making experience could pull them off; there were also a lot of projects that involved stamping, embossing, and other card-making techniques that I've never attempted, but again, don't look incredibly hard (but I bet it becomes an expensive hobby!).

Then we got to try out some of the fun stuff: paper punches, markers and pens with different types of inks and tips, and we got to ooh and aah over their line of invitation stationery. I do love touching pretty paper. We also learned how to line an envelope, and got to try it ourselves.

It's not too hard; Paper Source sells plastic templates for tracing out liners, and I've also read that an easy way to do it is to measure out a template that is exactly 1/8" smaller than the actual envelope. At Archivers, they suggested a different method: tracing the envelope directly to get the right curve for the flap, then trimming the two vertical sides down to fit. It worked really well, and here was my final product:

One important lesson I learned was to not use a liner paper with a line/graph pattern unless you're REALLY into being anal and making sure all the lines are parallel/perpendicular to the envelope. No, thank you.

The other cool tool I used to make the liner was the Scor-it, which allows you to score paper to create a nice fold. You can also use a bone folder, and while I've never used a bone folder myself, the Scor-it was SO easy to use that I was completely sold. It's a pretty solid example of a unitasker, and while Alton Brown might object, I may be purchasing one of these in the near future. Gah, what wedding planning can convince you to do!

The only real problem with my lined envelope above, which you can see if you look closely, is that the liner is kind of crooked. That's because the adhesive tape I used was really sticky, and I positioned it badly. Fortunately, I also learned that there is a repositionable adhesive that becomes permanent only after 24 hours, which would be very useful. I also have a supply of Zots and other sticky dots that I'm sure I'll be using for various wedding craftiness.

So all in all, I would recommend the Archivers Bridal Showcase workshop. They offer it on a continual basis (at least, I see it on the calendar through July), it's less than 2 hours long, and it's FREE!

And speaking of Paper Source, the Weddingbees all write about it like it's some sort of paper mecca, which definitely makes me to want to check it out. Unfortunately, there's not one anywhere near Louisville, but there is one in D.C. and another in Alexandria -- I think I'll be making a visit while I'm here on the east coast!

**Update: I forgot to mention another tip the Archivers lady shared with us. If you buy cardstock/paper that's pre-cut in small sizes, and you need to print on it, it can be hard to feed it through a printer easily. Instead, use a removable glue dot to attach it to a full-sized sheet of paper, then feed it through the printer that way. When it's done, just remove the glue dot and it should come out perfectly!