Over Thanksgiving, Terry and I joined my parents, my brother, and my brother's girlfriend for a Southern Caribbean cruise. We were celebrating my mom's upcoming retirement, and it was an incredible escape for both of us. What an incredible trip! We visited six different islands, learning about each island's culture and nature.
The trip was a wonderful break from constantly thinking about the wedding details. I've realized it's all too easy to get swept up into trying to make the day perfect and trying to please everyone. The important thing is that we're getting married, and in ten or twenty or sixty years (or perhaps even sixty days), so many of these minor details won't matter. This vacation helped me gain some perspective on wedding priorities, and I know now that with the incredible professionals we have booked so far, we are in very good hands. We're going to leave all the big stuff to them. The fun stuff is ours!
Case in point - the honeymoon! Technically, honeymoon planning is the groom's responsibility, but Terry has been generous enough to let me help research. If you know me at all, you know traveling is absolutely my favorite thing. I love it all, from researching new places to finding the perfect hotel to the actual adventure. Moreover, I love traveling with Terry. From road trips to cruises to long flights, we love the thrill of learning about new cultures and new places. I cannot imagine a better travel buddy for the rest of my life.
Right now, we have several stops planned for the few weeks after the wedding, and we have officially booked one hotel! Our stay at the Amalfi Coast is all set. This stop is between London and Rome, so we're viewing it as the relaxing part of our trip. The hotel, in Vietri Sul Mare in Italy, will provide gorgeous views, hiking opportunities, wine tasting, and other low-key adventures to contrast the big city feel of London and Rome. We actually booked our hotel through Luxury Link, an awesome website that I highly recommend. The site provides significant discounts on luxury hotels. The hotels are guaranteed to be four- or five-star quality, and the packages usually include breakfast. Sometimes they even include spa treatments, dinners, champagne, or other bonus amenities. We are hoping to book London and Rome hotels through the same site. Whenever I get stressed about anything, I imagine relaxing in Europe. I can't wait to experience a European adventure!
Monday, November 29, 2010
Floral Design Studio
Flowers. Ugh. I have been dreading the flower thing since day one. I mentioned before that I have a hard time with flowers; as beautiful as they are, I hate seeing them go to waste after a wedding. Plus, with so many out of town guests, no one would be able to take home leftover centerpieces even if they wanted to. So originally, I envisioned hundreds of candles all around the reception. I've seen so many pictures of stunningly elegant weddings with candle centerpieces, and it worked perfectly for my no-flowers rule.
And then we met Nona. Owner of Floral Design Studio in Fremont, Nona is quite the charmer. My mom, Terry's parents, Terry, and I all adored her spunky personality and creative ideas. I already had my bouquet and bridesmaids' bouquets picked out from pictures online, and Nona assured me that she can create those, even adding some extra suggestions to make the bouquets more original.
When the centerpiece/decoration discussion finally came around, I think Nona could sense my hesitation. I explained that we are trying to keep decorative costs down (we chose a gorgeous venue for a reason!), and I described my lack of enthusiasm about floral centerpieces. Without skipping a beat, Nona came up with the perfect solution. She sketched an idea within about two minutes that fit all of my criteria - price, elegance, and non-floral. Plus, she even found a creative way to incorporate our grape/wine theme! Nona won us over in a heartbeat, and I feel so lucky that I stumbled upon her website in my research. Even more importantly, my mom and Terry's parents really seemed to like her ideas, too, so we all went home happy.
So now, officially, our major vendors are done. We have the venue, the photographer, the DJ, the cake, and the florist. Everything else is DIY - and we are SO excited about all those details. Now that we have our major vendors in place, we can really see our wedding coming together. And good thing, as it's almost seven months away!
And then we met Nona. Owner of Floral Design Studio in Fremont, Nona is quite the charmer. My mom, Terry's parents, Terry, and I all adored her spunky personality and creative ideas. I already had my bouquet and bridesmaids' bouquets picked out from pictures online, and Nona assured me that she can create those, even adding some extra suggestions to make the bouquets more original.
When the centerpiece/decoration discussion finally came around, I think Nona could sense my hesitation. I explained that we are trying to keep decorative costs down (we chose a gorgeous venue for a reason!), and I described my lack of enthusiasm about floral centerpieces. Without skipping a beat, Nona came up with the perfect solution. She sketched an idea within about two minutes that fit all of my criteria - price, elegance, and non-floral. Plus, she even found a creative way to incorporate our grape/wine theme! Nona won us over in a heartbeat, and I feel so lucky that I stumbled upon her website in my research. Even more importantly, my mom and Terry's parents really seemed to like her ideas, too, so we all went home happy.
So now, officially, our major vendors are done. We have the venue, the photographer, the DJ, the cake, and the florist. Everything else is DIY - and we are SO excited about all those details. Now that we have our major vendors in place, we can really see our wedding coming together. And good thing, as it's almost seven months away!
Cake Creations by Bev
A few weeks ago, I asked Terry what excites him most about the wedding planning process (not a trick question; I simply wanted to know what aspects he might be more motivated to endure). Thoughtfully, not surprisingly, he replied, "Um...the tastings..." I guess I should have known. So when we made our way up north over Labor Day weekend for a few cake tastings, I knew Terry felt at least as excited as I did.
I learned from a few other wedding weekends to avoid booking too many meetings in too few days. We agreed to start with just two bakers and then come up again for more if necessary.
Cake tasting is exactly as fun as it sounds. It is delicious and sweet and awesome. Terry's parents joined us for the first tasting, and the second baker actually gave us two small cakes to take home, so all of our parents got to try a bite.
Ultimately, we chose the world's sweetest cake baker, Bev. She works as a wedding baker part time to help put her three sons through college, and she insisted on hugging Terry and me before we left the meeting. We absolutely fell in love with Bev (not to mention her affordable pricing!), so we crossed our fingers that we (and everyone else) would love the cake. Luckily, it's AMAZING. Bev's buttercream frosting is seriously divine. We can't wait to work with her to design a beautiful, delicious cake for the wedding!
Cakes we will NOT be getting.
I learned from a few other wedding weekends to avoid booking too many meetings in too few days. We agreed to start with just two bakers and then come up again for more if necessary.
Cake tasting is exactly as fun as it sounds. It is delicious and sweet and awesome. Terry's parents joined us for the first tasting, and the second baker actually gave us two small cakes to take home, so all of our parents got to try a bite.
Ultimately, we chose the world's sweetest cake baker, Bev. She works as a wedding baker part time to help put her three sons through college, and she insisted on hugging Terry and me before we left the meeting. We absolutely fell in love with Bev (not to mention her affordable pricing!), so we crossed our fingers that we (and everyone else) would love the cake. Luckily, it's AMAZING. Bev's buttercream frosting is seriously divine. We can't wait to work with her to design a beautiful, delicious cake for the wedding!
Cakes we will NOT be getting.Sunday, November 7, 2010
Catching Up
The fact that we haven't posted in awhile (ahem, almost a month...) should serve as no indication of our wedding progress, though it can certainly tell you how busy we keep ourselves. Fall means football season, and apparently cheerleading coaches stay fairly occupied during football season. Between practices with my girls, JV games on Thursdays, and varsity games on Friday nights (which Terry attends almost every week), the wedding planning has to take somewhat of a backseat during the week.
So today is catch up day. We FINALLY compiled (addressed, stuffed, labeled, stamped, and sealed) the save the dates. And we put them in a mailbox. So they are out of our hands and in the hands of the U.S. Postal Service. THANK GOODNESS. Who knew compiling addresses for the people you know and love would be so time consuming and complicated? Plus, who knew that actually writing the addresses properly would be so difficult? I consulted my Emily Post's Etiquette book four hundred and seven times (that may be an exaggeration) over the last six weeks, trying to figure out how to address an envelope for each guest. I hope I did it right.
This weekend we have another wedding adventure planned: We are off to my parents' house for a few days in hopes of booking a florist and baker. Terry's parents are also getting a chance to see our venue for the first time, and I'm hoping I can try on my wedding dress for my dad. We're also aiming to have our parents get to know our pastor and enjoy a bit of relaxation in the gorgeous fall weather of the Bay Area.
And finally, one of the most exciting check marks so far: We booked our honeymoon flights! Our dream of traveling the world together takes another step toward coming true. Our itinerary is:
So today is catch up day. We FINALLY compiled (addressed, stuffed, labeled, stamped, and sealed) the save the dates. And we put them in a mailbox. So they are out of our hands and in the hands of the U.S. Postal Service. THANK GOODNESS. Who knew compiling addresses for the people you know and love would be so time consuming and complicated? Plus, who knew that actually writing the addresses properly would be so difficult? I consulted my Emily Post's Etiquette book four hundred and seven times (that may be an exaggeration) over the last six weeks, trying to figure out how to address an envelope for each guest. I hope I did it right.
This weekend we have another wedding adventure planned: We are off to my parents' house for a few days in hopes of booking a florist and baker. Terry's parents are also getting a chance to see our venue for the first time, and I'm hoping I can try on my wedding dress for my dad. We're also aiming to have our parents get to know our pastor and enjoy a bit of relaxation in the gorgeous fall weather of the Bay Area.
And finally, one of the most exciting check marks so far: We booked our honeymoon flights! Our dream of traveling the world together takes another step toward coming true. Our itinerary is:
- San Francisco --> London
- London --> Amalfi Coast, Italy
- Amalfi Coast --> Rome
- Rome --> San Francisco
- San Francisco --> LA to begin our married lives!
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Save the Dates & Paper Source
Today Terry came home! He had a good trip to Buffalo for work, but I'm thrilled that he's home. Today was a great day to head to Paper Source to finally make some concrete decisions together about our invitations and save the dates! We bought all our envelopes for sending our save the dates, as well as a few extra decorative supplies for our stationary. We also checked out all the displays and ideas from the Paper Source experts, and we got some great ideas for our DIY invitations. Now we're finally starting to see what we can do to create a consistent theme in all our stationary.
We also finally ordered our save the dates! They should be here in a few weeks, during which time I'll be addressing all the newly purchased envelopes. On the other hand, today I ordered a custom rubber stamp (www.rubberstampchamp.com) to use on our reply card envelopes. It'll be far faster to stamp the return address on all the envelopes rather than handwriting or printing each one!
Can't wait to officially announce our wedding to our guests!
We also finally ordered our save the dates! They should be here in a few weeks, during which time I'll be addressing all the newly purchased envelopes. On the other hand, today I ordered a custom rubber stamp (www.rubberstampchamp.com) to use on our reply card envelopes. It'll be far faster to stamp the return address on all the envelopes rather than handwriting or printing each one!
Can't wait to officially announce our wedding to our guests!
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Binders and Spreadsheets
I did it. I finally got organized. Exactly one year, one month, two weeks, and four days after our engagement and exactly nine months before the wedding (today!), I did it. And thank goodness.
I had thought about it, even tried it a few times, but nothing really worked. I found millions (okay, about a dozen) of websites offering to help me get organized, but I really need everything in one place, and I need to be able to carry that one place with me, to access it from anywhere. I imagine that in a few years (or even now, for some more connected brides), a laptop/iPad/SmartPhone will be sufficient for wedding planning, but I need more. So I went old school, as teachers tend to do.
You may wonder how on earth I had time to spend almost three full days getting organized, but the answer is simple: My fiance is out of town. I'm surprisingly more productive when he isn't around. But it's so much more fun when he is around, so I guess that's the trade off.
Anyway, back to the organization. I wish someone had told me about all this stuff when I first got engaged, but maybe I wouldn't have taken it to heart until over 13 months later. I was saying that I went old school. Really old school. Like...paper. I already had my "wedding planning binder" that I had toted around from vendor meeting to vendor meeting, but today things got serious. I used my lovely green wedding planning binder (a gift from my amazing matron of honor) and created new tabs that make much more sense to me.
Aren't they lovely?
I also printed all of our invoices and contracts so far in order to have them in one place. I used sheet protectors for the especially important stuff. The tabs are organized by importance (biggest vendors first) and then in order that we'll need them. I finally have a working tool for the wedding planning that I can continue to use for the next nine months.
But that wasn't all. If you didn't know it already, you should learn now that I LOVE spreadsheets. Microsoft Excel didn't know it, but they really created their product specifically for me. I can spend hours upon hours lost in the wonders of Excel spreadsheets. So far, I have the following spreadsheets for the wedding:
And now, the fun can continue! Terry comes home tomorrow, and we're planning a field trip to Paper Source in Santa Monica. It might just be my new favorite store. Thanks to a gift card from Heidi and Ed, we can get started on our paper-buying extravaganza!
Scout was very helpful today.
9 months to go...
I had thought about it, even tried it a few times, but nothing really worked. I found millions (okay, about a dozen) of websites offering to help me get organized, but I really need everything in one place, and I need to be able to carry that one place with me, to access it from anywhere. I imagine that in a few years (or even now, for some more connected brides), a laptop/iPad/SmartPhone will be sufficient for wedding planning, but I need more. So I went old school, as teachers tend to do.
You may wonder how on earth I had time to spend almost three full days getting organized, but the answer is simple: My fiance is out of town. I'm surprisingly more productive when he isn't around. But it's so much more fun when he is around, so I guess that's the trade off.
Anyway, back to the organization. I wish someone had told me about all this stuff when I first got engaged, but maybe I wouldn't have taken it to heart until over 13 months later. I was saying that I went old school. Really old school. Like...paper. I already had my "wedding planning binder" that I had toted around from vendor meeting to vendor meeting, but today things got serious. I used my lovely green wedding planning binder (a gift from my amazing matron of honor) and created new tabs that make much more sense to me.
Aren't they lovely?I also printed all of our invoices and contracts so far in order to have them in one place. I used sheet protectors for the especially important stuff. The tabs are organized by importance (biggest vendors first) and then in order that we'll need them. I finally have a working tool for the wedding planning that I can continue to use for the next nine months.
But that wasn't all. If you didn't know it already, you should learn now that I LOVE spreadsheets. Microsoft Excel didn't know it, but they really created their product specifically for me. I can spend hours upon hours lost in the wonders of Excel spreadsheets. So far, I have the following spreadsheets for the wedding:
- Wedding Budget (estimations, actual costs, amounts paid)
- Honeymoon Budget
- Master Guest List (including the main list with addresses, the rehearsal dinner guest list, the names to be written on escort cards, the response list, and the table numbers)
- Wedding To Do List (maybe my favorite - including the long-term to-do list from 12 months out, the wedding weekend itinerary, the ceremony schedule, and the reception schedule)
- Wedding Day Contact List
And now, the fun can continue! Terry comes home tomorrow, and we're planning a field trip to Paper Source in Santa Monica. It might just be my new favorite store. Thanks to a gift card from Heidi and Ed, we can get started on our paper-buying extravaganza!
Scout was very helpful today.9 months to go...
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Bits of Progress
Sometimes I hate that Google forces me to come up with names for each blog post, because, let's be honest, most of these posts could have the same generic title: Most Recent Wedding Planning Process. And yet, I love Google so much for everything else it allows me to do that I can really only elaborate on my complaints for as much as a sentence. Listing the stuff I love about Google would take much, much longer.
One thing I love about Google is that they provided the template for our wedding website! The site hosts all pertinent information for our wedding guests, including hotel information, ceremony directions, and registries. Google has countless templates for personal websites, including the grape/vineyard one that we chose for our site. It's been surprisingly fun for me to build an entire website, and hopefully our guests will find it useful and informative.
Recently, we scheduled two more engagement sessions! One is with our great friend, Roxanne, who is generously taking us to UCLA for more pictures. The UCLA pictures are especially important to us, as we met and fell in love on campus and continue to cherish being UCLA alumni. The next session is with our wedding photographer, Rhee. The session with Rhee will allow us to get to know her better (and vice versa) and will also give us a chance to do a fun themed shoot. We are so excited to take more pictures to document this incredible time in our lives.
After the major vendors, the save the dates have felt like a huge decision. Before he could design the save the dates, Terry had to envision what our invitations will look like, because we want a consistent flow throughout all of our wedding stationary, right up to the day of the wedding. Terry did a beautiful job with the save the date design! I can't wait to post pictures after they have gone out to the guests. Over the last few days I have been researching the various companies that allow you to upload your own design for save the dates. Prices are surprisingly reasonable, and our friends provided the hint that you can find coupon codes online to get 50% off! We also need to order envelopes and return address labels, plus stamps. We don't need anything fancy; we just want an elegant, pulled-together look that minds our paper budget. Plus we have to double check our guest list to make sure we have it all sorted out. We are looking to order the save the dates this week, address the envelopes when they arrive, and send them out before November! A little progress at a time!
For now, enjoy a little sneak at another of Rox's amazing pictures from January!
One thing I love about Google is that they provided the template for our wedding website! The site hosts all pertinent information for our wedding guests, including hotel information, ceremony directions, and registries. Google has countless templates for personal websites, including the grape/vineyard one that we chose for our site. It's been surprisingly fun for me to build an entire website, and hopefully our guests will find it useful and informative.
Recently, we scheduled two more engagement sessions! One is with our great friend, Roxanne, who is generously taking us to UCLA for more pictures. The UCLA pictures are especially important to us, as we met and fell in love on campus and continue to cherish being UCLA alumni. The next session is with our wedding photographer, Rhee. The session with Rhee will allow us to get to know her better (and vice versa) and will also give us a chance to do a fun themed shoot. We are so excited to take more pictures to document this incredible time in our lives.
After the major vendors, the save the dates have felt like a huge decision. Before he could design the save the dates, Terry had to envision what our invitations will look like, because we want a consistent flow throughout all of our wedding stationary, right up to the day of the wedding. Terry did a beautiful job with the save the date design! I can't wait to post pictures after they have gone out to the guests. Over the last few days I have been researching the various companies that allow you to upload your own design for save the dates. Prices are surprisingly reasonable, and our friends provided the hint that you can find coupon codes online to get 50% off! We also need to order envelopes and return address labels, plus stamps. We don't need anything fancy; we just want an elegant, pulled-together look that minds our paper budget. Plus we have to double check our guest list to make sure we have it all sorted out. We are looking to order the save the dates this week, address the envelopes when they arrive, and send them out before November! A little progress at a time!
For now, enjoy a little sneak at another of Rox's amazing pictures from January!
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