Moving into phase two

I know I haven't written in a while, but there was absolutely no planning going on for the wedding. There are two phases: The first phase where you have to book/find/buy all the important stuff but then there is this period of time where it is too early to do other things. Well now that time as come and we are moving into phase two. 

Derek has gone to Men's Wearhouse to get sized up for his tuxedo. Steph, my big sister from Kappa Phi and maid of honor, went with us and she was a big help in offering her opinion. We got everything picked out. The shirt, shoes, cuff links, and tux. 

I have also picked out the necklaces (with Steph's help) that the bridesmaids will be wearing. They are a flower and leaf design that closely matches the embroidery on the dresses. 

There have been some issues that we had had to deal with on both sides of the wedding party, but things are finally coming together and I have confidence that everything will turn out great. What's meant to be is meant to be. 

Derek and I met with Nicole, who is the head of Sodexo Catering at Mansfield University. We talked for about an hour and a half and covered every little detail from the table cloth colors to how the napkin is going to be folded. She had a lot of great ideas, and offered her opinions when we weren't sure on things. I trust Nicole because I know she is a perfectionist. 

I also got word on how much tax money I will be getting back. It is MORE than enough to cover all of the little details. I will post when these things are taken care of/bought. It is a relief because I was going to have to buy all of these things with my own paycheck, which isn't that large! 

It's been a while

Still not much to say but I figured I'd drop in.

I asked Derek's sister Ashley to be one of my bridesmaids and she said she would be. I know I asked her a little late, but in my defense we barely knew each other up until just recently.

Now I am going to rant. Our wedding reception is in the fire company reception hall. We asked Arlene, the woman who handles the bookings, what the max occupancy is for the room. She said 250. Our caterer Nicole, told us that we would never be able to fit 150 people (our max amount) in the hall. Huh, 150 seems to be way off from 250....

We also got the square footage of the room AND we measured the tables. I had a diagram drawn out to give to Nicole that had everything labeled from the tables to the dance floor down to the decorations.

She said it was NOT possible. I beg to differ.

Last Saturday, I went to the fire hall to cover the annual Mansfield Fire Company banquet for the Wellsboro Gazette. They had seating for 200 people (I counted chairs), four buffet tables, a large mini bar (ha, oxymoron) in one corner, a head table, a table with door prizes and a DJ. Might I add there was plenty room for dancing, even though it was awkward space. They had long tables with 22 seats each going in diagonal directions.

So let's get this straight again. I am expecting 125-150 people at my wedding. I am not going to have a mini bar in the corner of the room. We are using the kitchen for that. It has a counter that looks into the room so we will not be wasting any space. I am not going to have four buffet tables but probably only three.

But still... I CANNOT fit all of these people into the reception hall for my wedding. Aghh! Who ever would have thought something was so stressful!

What's been going on

Not really much going on with wedding planning, but we have been getting some touches done here and there. I was able to pick up my wedding dress a while back. We decided to go with a petite size. The dress drags on the floor ever so little. I need to find a shoe that has a tiny heel and then it will be perfect. I do need to get the top part tailored though but the consultant said to not do that until about 6 weeks before the wedding. So it is sitting in my closet for now....

We finally have a contract with our caterers. Have the meal planned out and ordered all of the table cloths and chair covers. It is going to look beautiful but you'll just have to come in order to see :-)

I have also made some changes to the music for the ceremony. I will still be using Canon in D by Pachelbel for the wedding party but I will be coming in to something different. I am hoping that everyone will recognize it right away and it is totally me. Derek and I also decided on an awesome song for the recessional. :-) Surprises surprises!!!

We also just signed a contract for Alicia, one of our photographers. She will be there to capture the rehearsal dinner and the ceremony. I am glad that we also decided to have the rehearsal dinner photographed, since it is still an important part of the festivities.

God works in mysterious ways - we are so blessed!

In this moment in time I feel so lucky to have great friends and family. We now have TWO photographers for our wedding. A friend from college, Alicia, is going to be photographing the rehearsal dinner and the ceremony. Derek and I both had classes with her, and we got to see some of her work since she was a photographer for The Flashlight. Her shots are beautiful. Her photography business is just taking off and well, what are friends for?

Danielle Barden is our second photographer. I won a photo contest in April that she held. She holds a different contest each month. My prize for winning was 25 dollars off of a photo shoot with her. We got to see all of the photos ahead of time on her shutterfly account (we will be recieving a CD in the mail today with the pictures) and she did an AMAZING job. We asked her if she would be willing to do our wedding and she was so excited!

Unfortunately we could not afford the deposit right away which would have put us on her schedule for good. Derek's mom offered to loan us the money for the deposit so we can book Danielle asap! I would have been so scared while saving up the money, because Danielle is pretty much booked solid through next year! It only would have been a matter of time before our wedding date was taken by someone else. I feel relieved and happy now that Arloween was able to help us in such a big way.

Two weeks ago while we were at the 147th Gettysburg reenactment, my mom wanted to visit a friend in the sutlers, Cissy. When we got there, Cissy was talking to a couple who were visiting for the weekend. They were talking about how much of a great time they were having. Mom and Dad told them that they were welcome to come up to our units camp, and they were instantly hooked. We now have two new members of the 6th NY artillery unit, Reneau and Mark. They had an absolute fabulous time. Mom and Reneau have been e-mailing each other back and forth since then, and Reneau is a cake decorator and gives classes at Michael's craft store. So not only is she willing to help us out with decorations because she gets a discount, but she is also making our cake! How lucky is that?!

Wow. *knock on wood* Can things get any better?

The joys of working for catering

Today my boss Nicole gave me the "order forms" for our reception. We have to fill out all the information about our reception and then once she gets it back, then we can start the contract process. I am happy that we are getting great food and quality table linens/decorations for such a bargain. I was going through my wedding planner and the average couple spends $9,000 for catering/reception. We will be spending under $3,000.

Two weeks ago I was working and the job for the day was setting up a lobster fest in the fire hall for alumni weekend. They had ordered chair covers with pretty satin bows. I talked to Nicole about it, and since they are a reasonable price, I am going to go for it. I hope that when people walk into the fire hall they say "woah!" That is my goal- to make the reception as pretty as possible.

Today at work some of us co-workers were cleaning up the main room during some of our spare time. Shane found an entire crate filled with napkins that had pine cones and pine trees on them. There were at least 2oo napkins and they are now in my care. They will make perfect cocktail napkins. I am glad we came across them otherwise we would have had either boring plain napkins, or costly personalized ones.

Invitations

My mom works as a substitute aid at the elementary and middle schools back home. She knows tons of people who remember me back when I was a tiny kid. She was talking to one of the officers at the middle school, Carilee, about the wedding. Carilee just so happens to do wedding invitations. So my mom hired her right on the spot. We are very lucky to have her do it for us. Her and my mom have been going back and forth about it for the past couple of days now, and we have already decided on a design. It looks great and goes perfect with our Christmas theme. I am glad that we don't have to worry about them anymore. She is also doing save the date cards, rsvp cards, and table placement cards. For those of you who want to see a picture of the invitations, well you're just going to have to wait until you get invited :-P

Cousin's Wedding

My family went to our cousin's wedding a couple of weeks ago. The church that they were married in was not at all what I expected. I expected something big and lavish, but instead it was all tiny, cute and cozy. Going to their wedding helped me make a lot of decisions about what I wanted at my own wedding such as reception music. I was worried about how to decorate the church. How many flowers, where to put them, yada yada. But then I went to their wedding and I realized that you don't need that many things in order to make it look beautiful. The focus should be on the bride and the groom, not how many flower arrangements there are. Here is a picture of the church they were married in.