Last Minute Bridezilla

It's been so long since I've been able to post...or even thought about it for that matter!

Everything is coming together(for all the smug people that chanted this mantra to me as I poured my heart out planning this wedding). My mom hired a reception coordinator. It has been the best thing. I thought I would spend (most likely my last) post giving advice to others.

Things I Have Learned the Hard Way (also a few things I did correctly):

• Call your closest friends and family to announce your engagement. Don't do it on Facebook. That's for acquaintances and old science lab partners from college you haven't un-friended yet.
• Don't get frustrated when people ask you when the date is. They are asking because they are interested and because they care.
• Pick a date and stick with it. Nothing confuses everyone else like a flip-floppy couple. It will save you time and money.
• If you pick a date between September and March, your reception venues will most likely be cheaper. Wedding Season is considered between the months of April and August. People usually hike up their prices due to the demand.
• People pass out at outdoor weddings. Don't get married outdoors unless it's below 85 degrees. You don't want to be sweating on your big day either, don't make your guests sweat.
• Flowers cost A LOT! 
• Set up a budget and follow it. 
• Ask for help. If you do it yourself, you are probably going to have a horrible wedding. And probably a stress ulcer.
• Take engagement pictures early. Use them for Save the Dates and Reception Decor. Take the engagement pics outside - best light possible. It's a pain but change outfits. You will want to have several options to chose from. I know a couple of great photographers if you need someone.
• Don't spend a lot of money on Save the Dates. I bought photo cards off walmart.com. See previous post for details.
• I got a ton of compliments on my real invitations. My mom found them on an Indian wedding website. I totally recommend this. Allow a little extra time for shipping though. They ended up being $2 per invite. If anyone saw them and knows anything about wedding invitations, you know this is a steal.
• Keep a spreadsheet of Save the Dates and Wedding Invites. It's annoys your friends when you have to ask them for their address every other month.
• Don't send out empty envelopes. Make sure your fiance stuffed his stack of envelopes.
• Some people are rude and don't RSVP. I included a response card, addressed envelope, AND a stamp. And I STILL am chasing down people who have not RSVPed 8 days before my wedding. It's so annoying. If you're one of those people - don't do that to the next wedding you're going to. It stresses the bride, her coordinator, mother, and reception coordinators. 
• Have someone write down who gives you what at your bridal showers. Keep them in a spiral or notebook. You will forget.
• Write thank you notes. I went to 6 weddings in one year and only got 3 thank you notes. If people are traveling, buying you presents, and giving up their weekend to see you get married, you owe it to them to write them a three sentence card.
• Send out your thank you notes after your showers. I set a goal of writing 10 thank you notes a day. Although I should have set this goal earlier, I have gotten 2/3 of thank you notes accomplished.
• Only register for things you want. 
• People buy you ugly things that you did not want.
• You can regift them later. Write a thank you note anyway.
• Don't pick an expensive bridesmaid dress if you're not paying for it. 
• Ask around for recommendations when booking florists, DJs, make up artists, etc. Reception venue coordinators know TONS of people in the business if you are getting married somewhere not your hometown.
• Take some pre-marital counseling. You will learn so much. It is so useful and it is way more important than anything else you are planning. Plan for your actual marriage.
• Don't pour a lot of money into party favors. Most of the time koozies with your date on them will get left behind. If you want to do favors, do a candy bar. People actually use it.
• Takeout boxes and candy bars are difficult. Most of the boxes are either too small or too big. Also the boxes take up a lot of space and are difficult to pull apart. Go for some cute bags in your colors.
• Have something for your guests to do. Let them dance, get their picture taken in a photo booth, eat, and drink. It is a party.
• Plan your first dance, father daughter dance, and mother son dance EARLY. If you wait to the last second like I did, it won't get done.
• Enjoy the attention. Even if people start asking questions that are none of their business ("When's the baby?") at least they're interested in your life. (For the record I usually retort "In 5 years.")

Hope that helped someone!

Invites! How Fancy.

We got so much done this weekend!!

My mother came up for a visit as well so not only is my house still clean, we visited the wedding coordinator, reception coordinator, and the photographer. We also managed to select some awesome invitations.

First stop was the wedding coordinator. This was a very nice lady from Marvin United Methodist Church. She is in charge of all of the ceremony details - which reminds me! One of the rules for the ceremony is absolutely no flash photography! At first I didn't see the big deal about it, but now that I think about it, I am relieved. The Methodists believe that the wedding ceremony is sacred and that no one should be distracted from the vows in any way. So take your pictures at the reception please. We'll still look cute. Plus my photographer will take a ton from the back pew with no flash (technology can do that now!). She will upload them to facebook so you can stalk them out on there. That was a long rabbit trail. Back to the wedding coordinator. She was a nice lady that invited us to her huge house in Tyler since the church was closed on Saturday. We went over family names, bridal party names, church music, church program, and even which cleaners to trust in Tyler. After over an hour of discussing anything and everything pertaining to the ceremony, we headed over to Hollytree Country Club.

Hollytree is a mere five minutes away from the church. There are only three turns so I hope no one manages to get lost. We met with our reception coordinator and talked over menus and bar packages. For the bar we are thinking of doing an open bar for cocktail hour and then open bar beer and wine only for the remainder of the evening. We don't want anyone to act a fool or drive home when they shouldn't. That's the plan for now anyway. We haven't done our tasting yet, so I don't know what the menu will be. We are thinking of a plated sit down dinner (hate balancing plates trying not to get food on my dress at buffets) with a dual choice entree. We also went over small details like where the candy bar will be - yes get excited about that, moving the dance floor to the middle of the tables, which chairs to use, and that sort of thing.

We had some time to kill in between appointments so we grabbed lunch and walked around the Tyler Mall. Which was a madhouse. We then met with our photographer, Brynne Owen. She is a photographer used to working with children, weddings, and likes using natural light. All perfect things. Plus she will upload some pics to facebook after my wedding so I can change my profile pic before I leave for my honeymoon!! It's the little things in life that make us happy, isn't it?

Don't think I ever blogged about the honeymoon plans yet. Our plan is to leave the day after, drive to Galveston and hop on Carnival Cruise lines for a 7 day cruise to the Caribbean. We are parasailing in Key West and horse back swimming/riding in the Bahamas. I am slightly looking forward to this more than the wedding just because it will be more relaxing. Don't get me wrong, I am really really excited about this wedding!

And lastly my mom found these gorgeous invitations from India! The peacock is also the national bird of India. Not to mention they have fabulous weddings over there. So naturally they have the best (and cheapest) peacock wedding invitations. They even have a youtube video for each wedding invite!!!! So helpful since most sites only offer a picture. It's hard to judge the quality and size by just a picture. Go to http://youtu.be/y1130U8MpEo if you want to take a look. These invitations would cost AT LEAST $7 per invite in the states but they're only $2 per invite since they are made in India. I love everything about this invitation.

I think that is about it! Less than 3 months till the big day!

Bridesmaid Dresses & Save the Dates

It's been a while since my last post! The first six weeks of my school year are all ready over! It has slowed my wedding planning considerably.

Since last time I have booked a DJ. He has experience with my reception venue. I gave him a lengthy phone interview to make sure he was legit. So that's out of the way. The church is officially reserved for us. We had to be put on a waiting list since we are not members of that particular church. They said if no member wanted it for that date then we could have it. We got the all clear September 10th. Now all I have left to do is to book a florist. I found one in Kilgore that was recommended to me, I just need to contact them.

We finally picked out a bridesmaid dress! It's a tea length cocktail dress with two straps. It has a ribbon on the waist. Its color is "Horizon Blue" on David's Bridal. The dress has pockets, so that was a huge selling point with my bridesmaids.

I went ahead and ordered my Save the Dates. I decided to get them printed out on photo cards - a super cheap option. They were like 35 cents a piece. I have some magnet tape (magnets you can stick to things).  I am planning on making all of the photo cards magnetic. The magnetic tape costs about five dollars at Hobby Lobby and will cover all of my Save the Dates. It is soooo much cheaper than ordering actual magnets which would have cost me around $2.50 a piece. Sometimes it pays to be crafty.

Ceremony Details

I found my DJ! He has nine years of experience and has done weddings at Hollytree Country Club before. I also managed to snag my friend and one of my TBS sisters, Amanda of Stressed Desserts to do our wedding cake! I am so excited about that. EVERYTHING she makes tastes awesome. That's my first priority in a wedding cake - taste. So many of them look awesome and then taste terrible to mediocre. 

Yesterday Brady and I went to our first pre-marital counseling session. We both learned a lot and enjoyed it. In addition to talking about our relationship, we went over some of the ceremony details. One of the ceremony options was to serve communion to our guests. I thought that was really cool. I would obviously be the one holding the bread, since the grape juice needs to stay away from my dress. But serving the communion would be a nice way to pay tribute to God and also a cool way to see all of our guests. We have not decided officially yet.  The communion table for all Methodist churches is an open table. That means you can be any denomination of Christian to partake. Ultimately the decision is ours to make, but we were also wondering what everyone else thought.

Engagement Photos

Brady and I took our engagement photos over the July 4th weekend! Since then I have had a job interview, bought my wedding dress (you have to wait until March 10th to see it!), got a job teaching middle school, and bought a car. So this month has been wonderfully busy!

Back to our photo shoot. My dear and talented friend, Cara Schrader, took photos of us all day Saturday. She did such a great job! It was a blazing 102 degrees for the majority of the day. Our first location was at Vargo's. It's a restaurant in Houston that has live peacocks. We showed up in our formal attire around 11 AM and started stalking some peacocks. To those of you that are not familiar with peacocks, they are not super outgoing creatures. We spent the first hour chasing around the same peacock who kept on jumping up on the roof to avoid us (and peacocks can fly by the way for short distances). The second thing you may not know is that they are very loud. Have you seen the movie UP? Peacocks sound exactly like Kevin. Very loud, obnoxious, and quite startling if you're not expecting it.

Here is one of our favorites, again taken by Miss Cara Schrader. The grounds there (all though very hot) were also very pretty. This was one of those swingy bridges and Brady had too much fun swaying the bridge back and forth violently to freak me out.

After the first hour, we went inside for maybe five minutes and then came back outside. We found that some of the other peacocks weren't as aloof as the first one. In fact, the peacock that hung out by the gazebo, was just plain helpful. Look at the amazing amazing amazing picture Cara got!! After she took this one she cheerfully called to us, "Ok, we got it!"

We then went back to Katy for lunch and a cool down. Our next location was the Houston Water Wall by the Galleria. After the playing the stressful game of "Find a Parking Spot" we were off again to capture some water wall shots. Everyone on facebook likes this shot the best.

We took a lot more, but it takes too long to upload them all to blogspot. The best thing about the water wall was that we could just stand really close and get misted. Definitely helpful with the heat.

Our last location was George Bush Park on Westheimer. We didn't take as many here but the ones we did take I really love. Here is my favorite shot.

Basically, July has been an awesome month. :)

Wedding Dress!

FOUND IT!

Just kidding. But to start off my wedding dress search, I tried on my mother's wedding dress from 1982. It actually fit pretty perfectly, it was just super long. Krista, my maid of honor, and Lauren, my cousin were meeting at my house to accompany my mom and I on our dress search. I answered the door in this dress. I wish I took pictures of their faces. 

So after I made a quick wardrobe change, we set off for three different bridal appointments. The first stop was at Weddings by Debbie. It's about 5 minutes away from my house on the Katy Freeway. It was a huge bridal salon. I had a helpful consultant and I tried on six different gowns. I liked two of them. 

We stopped for lunch before continuing to the second appointment at Parvani Vida. It's a smaller store off of Highway 6. Here we had more success. I found three dresses that I really loved. Two were by the designer Casablanca and one was by a designer called Symphony. 

My mom, Lauren, and I continued to our last stop, Houston Bridal Gallery. It's also on the Katy Freeway, but  closer to Memorial than Katy. It was the smallest store of the three. We found two dresses that are so so gorgeous, both by Justin Alexander. 

It was a really awesome experience. Now I have to make the tough decision of which one I want! I have 5 favorites, although I keep on thinking about three in particular. All of them are within my budget (so don't let those snooty Klienfeld's consultants from Say Yes to the Dress make you think you have to spend $5,000 on a wedding dress).

Although trying on wedding dresses is more tiring than you would think, I still really enjoyed it. Everyone was complimenting me, telling me I have a tiny waist, or that I have the perfect body for bridal (my height paying off for once!). Now I have to go back to my real life of teaching pre-school, changing diapers, and being normal. 

WE CHOSE A VENUE!

FINALLY!  We chose a venue! I am so excited. I feel like a big weight has been lifted off my shoulders. The plan is to get married at Marvin UMC. After the ceremony, we will travel a mere five minutes to Hollytree Country Club. 

When we saw it, it was sectioned off, but the room will be a lot bigger when we get married. It has these really tall ceilings with big wooden rafters. There are two large fire places and a wine cellar. I am really excited! It also includes a cocktail area with a bar and a piano.

Now that the huge decisions are made, I can move on to the details.