199 Days!
I was going to do a 200 day post, but 200 days out was my birthday so my best intentions fell victim to scheduling conflicts.
As a recap, we're getting married on 10/10/10 in Los Angeles. So far we've booked a venue, gotten a photographer (Megan Finley, link is to her site) and I've bought a dress.
Venue
We had our first in-person meeting with the venue (The Bungalow Club) and it went really well! We'd only ever been there for dinner, so it was interesting to see everything in daylight/at sunset, and we got a full walkthrough of where everything will be set up on the day-of. We confirmed that we'll be able to serve the martini menu at the reception, which was a big deal to me, and found out which of their regular beers would be on tap (all of them!) so I'm pretty pleased with my decision to go open bar. We grabbed some food while we were there, which is always pretty good, but makes me sad because the food meeting won't be until the month before the wedding. :(
Clothes
My dress came! I almost didn't know this, because I gave David's my spam address and they didn't call me, just e-mailed. And they told me the dress would be in around the middle of May. So I've got a wedding dress hanging in my closet for the next few months until it's close enough to the wedding to get alterations. The ivory color did end up looking better against my skin, and as a bonus the color matches perfectly with my FABULOUS WEDDING HAT: (a pre-emptive forgiveness is asked again for terrible cameraphone pictures. I promise my wedding pictures will be taken on a real camera.)
I knew I didn't want a veil, but I was conflicted because I wanted a cute hat and it seemed like they all came with some form of birdcage veil. My fiance's groomswoman pointed me to this Etsy listing and it's perfect! The flowers went a bit squish during shipping so I need to reshape them a bit, but other than that it's just what I was looking for.
My feeling about the tuxes was, "it's his wedding dress, stay out of it," which I followed... to the best of my ability. He decided he wanted his groomsmen to all match, so he was faced with the task of finding one style that worked for an XS guy all the way up to a 3-4X. I would have thought this was easy, but apparently not! He had to go to a couple tux places because not all of them carried full vests past 2X in a color/pattern he wanted. This is what he ended up deciding on:
The first is his combo, the second the groomsmans'. I was trying to nudge him towards a lighter shirt and jacket with his outfit, but in the end, it's his special daaaaaaay and he can wear what he likes.
Bridesmaids! Yeah. If you do what I did ("Just buy a regular dress that makes you happy. A red, short one.") just be aware that you've opened yourself up to a universe of shopping trips. I've taken 3 already with the groomswoman, to malls and vintage shops and prom shops and bridal shops, and she still hasn't found anything to make her happy. I'd still do what I did, and I think it'll look fine, but I probably would have drank a lot less during the process if I'd just picked one out of a catalog.
Etc.
I'm not having flowers, but since I am having bridesmaids I wanted them to carry SOMETHING. I'd decided on lanterns but I wanted something colorful, a little funky, and cheap. World Market to the rescue! These hanging lanterns were ~$6 each and I'll put LED tealights in them so no one catches on fire during the ceremony:
Save The Dates! I did not want them. We do have a lot of out-of-town guests, but I'd informed most of them when the wedding was as soon as we'd picked a date. My fiance really, really wanted them, so I told him that I'd be happy to address the envelopes (his handwriting is terrible) as long as he did the rest of the work on them without me. The result:
He really outdid himself, I think they're gorgeous. The picture doesn't reflect well, but they're thermographed with metallic gold ink- he had me check the proof online for errors and I thought the ink color was flat and drab yellow, so being home first and taking them out of the box was a nice surprise. The main thing I love is that they have matching invitations, so that takes away another wedding task I wasn't looking forward to doing!
Dessert was another sticking point between us. I didn't really see the need for any, and I don't really care for cake, he wanted something big and showy and impressive but didn't care how it tasted (he even suggested a styrofoam prop cake, which I vetoed.) The ideal compromise is, of course...
Croquembouche! I like the carmel kind just fine but the baker I'm looking at makes a version held together with chocolate instead and it's too much to resist.
To-Do:
Not too much! Most of the big stuff is taken care of, so with 6 months to go I'm just picking up tasks when I feel like doing them.
Rings: High meaning, low priority. We both want plain bands with no stones, so now it's just a matter of shopping around for a decent price.
Shoes: This is pretty much going to take the whole 6 months. My bookmark menu for shoes has a scroll arrow. It took me 30 minutes to decide to buy my wedding dress and I've been looking at wedding shoes for the past year. Expect shoe post in future.
Wedding Glasses: I have no choice about wearing my coke-bottles for the wedding, but I don't really mind that since I've been wearing them my whole life. What I do mind is that my plastic frames are getting old and a bit worn, which can only be seen up close, say... if someone is photographing my face a lot. So I've decided that my wedding is the perfect occasion to put some cash down on shiny new replacement frames. Vanity!
Reception/Ceremony Music: No DJ, so this means iPod playlists, mostly constructed at work. Music choice is tough, because me and my fiance have almost no overlap. He likes shouty metal, trance and punk, I like symphonic metal, pop and indie girl-rock. The first dance playlist has 25 song choices and no hard consensus so far.
Writing the Ceremony: We're getting married in LA County and taking advantage of their program that lets a person be deputized to perform one specific wedding for a fee. My dad will be performing the ceremony, but we need to write it for him first! I've got the structure pretty much worked out, the words are more of a problem as I am completely un-sentimental.
Hair/Makeup: I was going to hire someone, no I was going to do my own, no I should def. hire someone, no I'll do my own it'll save money, blah blah endlessly. I've been making trips to Sephora and have a stack of how-to books from the library, and I think I'm starting to see improvement (prior to this I'd never attempted anything more complicated than lipgloss), but if it's in my budget do I really want the stress of doing it myself on the day-of? I'm going to have to decide soon.
Pre- and Post- Festivities: I have a lot of out-of-town friends and family coming, and some of them are staying for quite awhile- my friends from Scotland have taken off a few weeks! We're not taking a honeymoon, so we'll be around to hang out with all our friends and that will be fun part of the time, but we live in LA! Beaches! Backyard Pools! Themeparks! Total tourist town! So I have to see about organizing some fun, casual (cheap) things that guests can drop in on if they want to, at least so I can say I didn't spend the whole week after my wedding inside playing video games.
All in all, in 4 months or so I've gone from being completely uninterested in having a wedding to expressing a glimmer of excitement at a nearly complete event! At the very least, even if nothing else gets done, I'll be having a large and awesome party for everyone I know on October 10th, and that's enough to be excited about :D
As a recap, we're getting married on 10/10/10 in Los Angeles. So far we've booked a venue, gotten a photographer (Megan Finley, link is to her site) and I've bought a dress.
Venue
We had our first in-person meeting with the venue (The Bungalow Club) and it went really well! We'd only ever been there for dinner, so it was interesting to see everything in daylight/at sunset, and we got a full walkthrough of where everything will be set up on the day-of. We confirmed that we'll be able to serve the martini menu at the reception, which was a big deal to me, and found out which of their regular beers would be on tap (all of them!) so I'm pretty pleased with my decision to go open bar. We grabbed some food while we were there, which is always pretty good, but makes me sad because the food meeting won't be until the month before the wedding. :(
Clothes
My dress came! I almost didn't know this, because I gave David's my spam address and they didn't call me, just e-mailed. And they told me the dress would be in around the middle of May. So I've got a wedding dress hanging in my closet for the next few months until it's close enough to the wedding to get alterations. The ivory color did end up looking better against my skin, and as a bonus the color matches perfectly with my FABULOUS WEDDING HAT: (a pre-emptive forgiveness is asked again for terrible cameraphone pictures. I promise my wedding pictures will be taken on a real camera.)
I knew I didn't want a veil, but I was conflicted because I wanted a cute hat and it seemed like they all came with some form of birdcage veil. My fiance's groomswoman pointed me to this Etsy listing and it's perfect! The flowers went a bit squish during shipping so I need to reshape them a bit, but other than that it's just what I was looking for.
My feeling about the tuxes was, "it's his wedding dress, stay out of it," which I followed... to the best of my ability. He decided he wanted his groomsmen to all match, so he was faced with the task of finding one style that worked for an XS guy all the way up to a 3-4X. I would have thought this was easy, but apparently not! He had to go to a couple tux places because not all of them carried full vests past 2X in a color/pattern he wanted. This is what he ended up deciding on:
The first is his combo, the second the groomsmans'. I was trying to nudge him towards a lighter shirt and jacket with his outfit, but in the end, it's his special daaaaaaay and he can wear what he likes.
Bridesmaids! Yeah. If you do what I did ("Just buy a regular dress that makes you happy. A red, short one.") just be aware that you've opened yourself up to a universe of shopping trips. I've taken 3 already with the groomswoman, to malls and vintage shops and prom shops and bridal shops, and she still hasn't found anything to make her happy. I'd still do what I did, and I think it'll look fine, but I probably would have drank a lot less during the process if I'd just picked one out of a catalog.
Etc.
I'm not having flowers, but since I am having bridesmaids I wanted them to carry SOMETHING. I'd decided on lanterns but I wanted something colorful, a little funky, and cheap. World Market to the rescue! These hanging lanterns were ~$6 each and I'll put LED tealights in them so no one catches on fire during the ceremony:
Save The Dates! I did not want them. We do have a lot of out-of-town guests, but I'd informed most of them when the wedding was as soon as we'd picked a date. My fiance really, really wanted them, so I told him that I'd be happy to address the envelopes (his handwriting is terrible) as long as he did the rest of the work on them without me. The result:
He really outdid himself, I think they're gorgeous. The picture doesn't reflect well, but they're thermographed with metallic gold ink- he had me check the proof online for errors and I thought the ink color was flat and drab yellow, so being home first and taking them out of the box was a nice surprise. The main thing I love is that they have matching invitations, so that takes away another wedding task I wasn't looking forward to doing!
Dessert was another sticking point between us. I didn't really see the need for any, and I don't really care for cake, he wanted something big and showy and impressive but didn't care how it tasted (he even suggested a styrofoam prop cake, which I vetoed.) The ideal compromise is, of course...
Croquembouche! I like the carmel kind just fine but the baker I'm looking at makes a version held together with chocolate instead and it's too much to resist.
To-Do:
Not too much! Most of the big stuff is taken care of, so with 6 months to go I'm just picking up tasks when I feel like doing them.
Rings: High meaning, low priority. We both want plain bands with no stones, so now it's just a matter of shopping around for a decent price.
Shoes: This is pretty much going to take the whole 6 months. My bookmark menu for shoes has a scroll arrow. It took me 30 minutes to decide to buy my wedding dress and I've been looking at wedding shoes for the past year. Expect shoe post in future.
Wedding Glasses: I have no choice about wearing my coke-bottles for the wedding, but I don't really mind that since I've been wearing them my whole life. What I do mind is that my plastic frames are getting old and a bit worn, which can only be seen up close, say... if someone is photographing my face a lot. So I've decided that my wedding is the perfect occasion to put some cash down on shiny new replacement frames. Vanity!
Reception/Ceremony Music: No DJ, so this means iPod playlists, mostly constructed at work. Music choice is tough, because me and my fiance have almost no overlap. He likes shouty metal, trance and punk, I like symphonic metal, pop and indie girl-rock. The first dance playlist has 25 song choices and no hard consensus so far.
Writing the Ceremony: We're getting married in LA County and taking advantage of their program that lets a person be deputized to perform one specific wedding for a fee. My dad will be performing the ceremony, but we need to write it for him first! I've got the structure pretty much worked out, the words are more of a problem as I am completely un-sentimental.
Hair/Makeup: I was going to hire someone, no I was going to do my own, no I should def. hire someone, no I'll do my own it'll save money, blah blah endlessly. I've been making trips to Sephora and have a stack of how-to books from the library, and I think I'm starting to see improvement (prior to this I'd never attempted anything more complicated than lipgloss), but if it's in my budget do I really want the stress of doing it myself on the day-of? I'm going to have to decide soon.
Pre- and Post- Festivities: I have a lot of out-of-town friends and family coming, and some of them are staying for quite awhile- my friends from Scotland have taken off a few weeks! We're not taking a honeymoon, so we'll be around to hang out with all our friends and that will be fun part of the time, but we live in LA! Beaches! Backyard Pools! Themeparks! Total tourist town! So I have to see about organizing some fun, casual (cheap) things that guests can drop in on if they want to, at least so I can say I didn't spend the whole week after my wedding inside playing video games.
All in all, in 4 months or so I've gone from being completely uninterested in having a wedding to expressing a glimmer of excitement at a nearly complete event! At the very least, even if nothing else gets done, I'll be having a large and awesome party for everyone I know on October 10th, and that's enough to be excited about :D