Now that Andy and I have been married for over 6 months, I figured it’s time to finally put up a few photos of the big day. Without further ado…
I wanted to make a list outlining things I’ve learned throughout the wedding planning process, so here goes…
1. Start early
2. If you’re looking to save money consider the food you’ll be serving. Having a seated dinner, or even a buffet dinner, can be outrageously expensive. If you’re looking to cut costs search around… A LOT! We happened to know the manager of a local restaurant so we were able to get dinner, ice cream, and cheese, crackers, and meats for snacks all for around $12 per person. However, if you have a tight budget and can’t find anything that fits within your price range consider having the wedding between lunch and dinner and only serving snacks and cake.
3. Budget wisely! This has been my biggest failure, by far. When I first started planning I thought of all the things we needed, but forgot to take a few things into account. First, factor in tax and shipping/delivery costs for everything. I think that’s an easy one to forget that can add hundreds.
Also, read the fine print. If you think you need more time with the photographer, DJ, or venue book it ahead of time. You’ll usually pay more for overtime charges than if you paid for the additional time up front. Also, when looking at photographers I think it’s a good idea to book a photographer or get a package which includes a high quality DVD of all your photos. Purchasing photos from the photographer adds up quickly.
Doing things yourself may save you money…or it may not. And usually even if you do save money you usually still spend more than you originally planned on. Take for example the save the dates and invitations that I made. Sure, I thought of the paper and postage stamps that I’d need to buy, but I didn’t anticipate needing to buy a paper-cutter, glue, heat embosser, or buying 8 stamps pads trying to find the perfect shade of pink (and still not finding the right one). Before you make the decision to go the DIY route try to consider everything that you will need to purchase and then pad that number. Also, compare the cost of DIY vs going store-bought or paying someone to do the job and weigh that against the time you’ll spend doing it yourself.
4. Hit up sales and use coupons. I waited til after Christmas before buying ribbon and it saved me some dough. I was able to find ribbon that I love and had been $5 a roll for around $1. At 8 rolls that saved me $32. Also, Andy and I get coupons for Michael’s craft store in the mail every few weeks so we will go and buy 1 thing at a time (this also works since the store is on my way home, otherwise it may not be worth the trips.). I also found some good deals at the local outlet mall. Every little bit helps.
5. Ask for help when you need it. If you don’t it’s easy to become overwhelmed.
6. Stay organized. For me, I have a manilla folder (well actually it’s a pretty blue color, but that’s beside the point) where I store all the contracts, fabric swatches, brochures, magazine page tearouts, etc. As the wedding has gotten closer and my first folder expanded to mammoth proportions I started a new folder which I keep on my desk with any of the wedding stuff which I need to look at more frequently or I know I will need in the near future.
I also created a wedding folder on my computer which I keep on my desktop for easy access. I store all my inspiration photos within subfolders, such as “flowers”, “cake”, “bouquet”, “miscellaneous decor”, “dresses”, etc. I also have a subfolder for all of the invites, save the dates, and monograms I’ve made and another folder for all of my spreadsheets and text documents.
Also, I bought a lot of items for the wedding (paper, candles and candle holders, ribbon…) and it was driving my crazy to have bags all over the place and things stored in different locations so I cleared room in my closet so I have everything in one convenient, easy to reach location.
7. Have fun! Wedding planning can be very stressful, which is why it’s important to keep your eye on the prize! At the end of the day the only real thing that matters is that you’re happy and married to the one you love.
Well, those are the main things I can think of. Does anyone have any questions or other points to add?
I had my hair trial this past Tuesday with Carrie, the hair stylist my usual lady suggested. Overall I thought it went pretty well. I was hoping for the length to be a bit longer, but that’s just my hair. Also, I think I might ask her to use a larger curling iron the day of so I have looser waves. I think she was a bit worried that the curls would start to slowly come out so she wanted to make it tighter to start with, but since my hair is curly to begin with I think that helped to hold the style in place. Also, I’d rather have it look how I want earlier in the day when all the photos are being taken – I’m not as concerned about the curls being gone by the end of the night, although I doubt that’d happen anyway.
In some of the photos you can see that there are some little flyaway strands so I’m hoping she’ll take care of those on the big day. Also, she used quite a bit of product so my hair wasn’t as soft and touchable as I’d like, but being that the wedding is outside in the summer it might be for the better. My hair goes crazy in the humidity so less product could turn out really bad. Ok, so without further ado here are the photos:
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- see the flyaways on the left?
I know it’s a bit overdue, but I wanted to post some photos from my makeup trial. I really wish we had gone outside to take some photos so we could see it in the natural light, but this is what we got. Keep in mind that my hair will NOT look like this! (at least I really hope not hehe) I’ve been trying to grow it out as much as I can before the wedding and haven’t gotten it cut for 6 months or more so it’s really bleh. But, I will be getting my hair cut and doing a hair trial this Tuesday so I will take and post photos of that too. I must admit that I’m pretty nervous about the hair now. I’ve never worked with this woman before and I hope she doesn’t botch it up. It’s a little close to the wedding to have to find someone else. Ok, I’ll stop rambling and post now.
So, what do you think? We may try a slightly different color for the lips. She did a much lighter pink which I’m not a big fan of (on me). I like something similar to my own lip color, just a little more oomph. I brought out my fav. lip gloss and she layered it over a lip pencil and this is what we ended up with. I’d say it’s pretty good, but my mom thought it was a little too peachy. We’ll see what happens on wedding day. I’ll bring my own glosses and such with me just in case hehe. I’ll get back later this week and let you know how the hair trial goes. Wish me luck!!!
Our April 18th RSVP date is getting close (only 2 days away!) and we’ve steadily been receiving replies back. So far we have 68 that have RSVP’d yes, some no’s (didn’t count those), and we still need replies from 14 people/families. We are currently expecting 86 people, but that number changes with the wind. I’m hoping that everyone gets in on time so I don’t have to call and bug people, but we’ll see. I’ve heard there are always some stragglers and it’s looking like our wedding will be no exception.
We’ve also started to get gifts and so far everyone has bought off of the honeymoon registry which is a relief. I was a bit worried that people might not go for it and we’d end up with random stuff we don’t need or already have. Everytime someone buys something I get an alert in my inbox and I’m always excited to see who bought us what! It came as no surprise to us that the first thing to go were our Eiffel Tower tickets. The one thing Andy really wants to go see is Mont St. Michel so I’m trying to plan a day for that and see if we can squeeze in Omaha beach too because I think if you’re in the Normandy area you really shouldn’t miss it. The problem is there’s no bus or anything that goes to both in one day so it seems like our only option if we do both is to take a train to Caen, then rent a car and drive to each. We’re still thinking this over because driving in a foreign country where neither of us really knows the language is quite intimidating. We could get a hotel somewhere and make it a 2 day thing, but we’ve only got 6 days in France and there’s so much to see and do in Paris that I don’t want to take away 2 whole days. I received our Chunnel tickets in the mail yesterday which is a bit exciting.
In other news Andy and I applied for our marriage license today and should get it in the mail in 3 days! Oh, and also it’s still not official yet, but I think we’ll be having our rehersal and rehersal dinner on Wed May 13th since the 14th is booked for an event. It might actually be nicer this way since it’ll give us the whole day before to work on any last minute things (like the flowers). Did I mention I ordered the flowers? I ended up ordering roses, garden roses, and spray roses. I had initially budgeted $1,000 for flowers, but Andy flipped out when I told him how much I was planning to spend so I cut it down to $600 after tax and everything. I was a bit sad to part with my 2nd type of garden rose and my dahlias and I’m hoping we still have enough to go around. I know $600 in flowers is still quite a bit, but I really love flowers and always dreamed of having them all around for the wedding. And finally, the last bit of news that I can think of is that Andy and I ended up hiring the DJ for an extra hour so he can play during the ceremony also. I’m a bit relieved knowing it’s one less thing I’ll be stressing out over the day of.
So now I will leave you with pictures of the flowers I ordered and a surprise gift I got for Andy which I’ll give to him the day of (shhh, don’t tell!). Enjoy 
bicolor rose
- peony garden rose
- pink and yellow garden rose
(Plus light pink, pink, and hot pink spray roses, which look like regular roses but smaller and more per stem.)
- Aren’t they cute?! hehe
I thought I published this, but apparently I just saved it as a draft so this is a few days old. Oops hehe
I’ve managed to get a few things crossed off my to-do list and thought I’d keep you informed…
I decided to go with the matching wedding band. I thought I could be happy with the non-matching band, but it was hard to tell and I didn’t want to have any regrets about something I’ll be wearing around my finger for the rest of my life so I went with the sure thing and bought the matching wedding band. It’s already come in the mail and I can’t wait to wear it. It looks so shiny and new next to my engagement band, which I’ll need to get resized and replated before the wedding. Andy also picked out and got his wedding band so we are ready to go!
I just got my passport in the mail today which is a relief. Can’t go on the honeymoon without it! I had to get it with my current last name since I won’t be able to get all the name change info submitted and approved in less than a day, which means I’ll need to get it changed on the passport after we get back.
And finally, the biggest relief of all…we got all the invites done this weekend and I dropped them off at the post office this afternoon. We spent pretty much all day Sunday working on them. We finished around 10pm with sore backs, knees, and necks. I can’t wait to start getting our RSVP’s back!
I’ve got a few odds and ends to wrap up, but nothing too major. The biggest stressor I have left is worrying about how things will play out the day of and who will do what. I really wish we had the money to hire people to do these things, but we don’t so I’ve got to find people who are willing to help out with certain things. Here’s a list of the things we have to get done the day of… Read the rest of this entry »
I had the day off this past Thursday and instead of studying like a good student I went shopping! haha Ok, it was only for like 2 hours, but I don’t get out much any more. I went to Crate and Barrel at the local outlet mall hoping to score a good deal on those cool candleholders I posted about recently. They weren’t on sale, but still a descent price so I bought a couple of each. I also went to Z gallerie later and purchased the long cylindrical tealight holder to go with everything else.
While I was in Crate and Barrel I was looking at all of their glass and they had 3 different sized drinking glasses that would work PERFECTLY for holding flowers. They were $1.95 each which isn’t bad. With 3 per table for 10 tables plus tax that would come out to be $62.00. I came home to discuss it with Andy and he’s all for it. He doesn’t like helping out with all my DIY projects so for him it’s just 1 less thing to do. For me, I enjoy all the projects, but I don’t have the time! I still have to finish the invites and 3 other projects that I started.
In other news, I may have found a makeup artist. I would really prefer to have someone do my makeup for the wedding so it doesn’t look exactly like it always does and also for the fact that it’s one less thing for me to worry about. Can you imagine me doing my makeup with shaky hands? hehe Anyway, I’m going home for a couple days over spring break and I’ll meet with her then to have a trial run. I hope everything goes well!
I also asked her how much she charges to do makeup for the wedding party and unfortunately I think it’s too high for me to pay for everyone. She charges $65 for the wedding party and $55 for family members (i.e. mother of the bride). With that said, would you gals be interested in getting your makeup done? It is totally up to you. I’m sure you gals will look great either way and getting it professionally done is great if you have the money and want to get a little pampering, but definately not necessary. I will post pictures when I have my trial so you can see how it turns out.
Well that’s all the news I can think of now. Time to get back to studying!
I designed and printed all of the RSVP cards this weekend (with the guest names on each one). I set the RSVP date for April 18th (our 4 year anniversary!) so that’ll push me to get the invites done pronto. I’ve gotten 3 of the 6 new stamp pads I ordered. The rest should arrive Monday or Tuesday. After I get the last of them I’ll choose which color I want to use and hopefully get all the invites printed, stamped, embossed, and mailed by next weekend. *Fingers crossed*
Also, just a random FYI, glamour magazine is selling a year subscription for only $1.5o (the same price a subscription cost when they 1st started, 70 years ago). The deal ends today so if you’re interested you better buy now!
Someone asked a question regarding how to word the RSVP’s on the message board of one of the blogs I read regularly (as in every 5 minutes regularly hehe) and it got me thinking. Basically the person had limited room at her venue (who doesn’t?!) and was asking if people thought it was ok to say something such as ” 2 seats have been reserved in your honor” at the top so people know only 2 people are invited. I thought it was a good idea, but a little too, I dunno, in your face about the limited seating. I was thinking what if we put something like…
Kindly respond by April 15, 2009
Bob Smith ___ Will attend ___ Will not attend
Susie Smith ___ Will attend ___Will not attend
(Also, the wording is just for example)
It would take a little more work to personalize each RSVP, but then there is no guessing whether someone’s kids or bf or whoever is invited and would hopefully stop any extra people from coming. What do you think of this idea? Does it seem too pushy or do you think people would just see it as a personalized touch?
I really hope I don’t find that I’m stressing out over the guestlist for nothing and get 30 or 40 people decline the invite, but honestly I think our numbers are pretty solid.
My original goal was to get the invites done and mailed out by this coming weekend. It doesn’t seem like I’ll be making that deadline now, but I shouldn’t be too far off. Although the stamping turned out to be a bust this weekend I did manage to get the addresses printed on both the invite envelopes and the RSVP envelopes. I should have ordered a bit more paper since the printer decided to eat a few envelopes. Guess it was hungry. As long as we don’t get too many sent back to us we should be fine though.
Next weekend I need to get the RSVP cards and the invites printed and stamped. I ordered 6 stamp pads off of amazon this morning so hopefully 1 or 2 of those will be the color I’m looking for! I haven’t tried the embossing yet so I’m not sure how much time that will take, but I’m thinking it will be quite a bit so I might end up being 2 weeks past my original deadline. Oh, and I will probably end up ditching the belly band on the invites. As much as I love it the paper would need to be about 13″ long to make it all the way around and since that’s not a standard paper size I’d need to find some large paper in the color I want and trim it down which seems like too much work at this point, but we’ll see.
