Thursday, March 23, 2006
Almost to the chapel....
It's 50 days and counting... Here’s a wedding update for anyone who’s curious.
Invitations are done. It took a while to find the right thing, but I love what we ended up using. The invitations are hand-crafted, following a design by our friend Kristin. A pale green cardstock has had applied to it a 3-dimensionsional lily-of-the-valley design and the words of the invitation printed on ivory card stock. It’s a really beautiful design, and each invitation looks great.
(Amy, Kristin, and my brother Kevin and I worked on assembling the invitations one weekend. Our mantra for much of the process was, “At least the glue dries clear. Thank goodness the glue dries clear.” And, indeed, it does! *smile*)
I addressed the envelopes, and then Ed and I stuffed them. The invitation, a half-sheet with a map, directions to Bloomington, and hotels info, a stamped response postcard, and - for those involved - an invitation to the rehearsal dinner are all went out in the mail. It feels good to have this much accomplished! And the RSVP postcards have been coming in…
We have registered for gifts at a few places, and a couple showers have been planned, one back home in Virginia (this weekend - so we’re on the road) and one here in Indiana (in two weeks). Before we got into it, I had thought that this part of things would be fun - I love shopping for dishes and bed linens almost as much as I enjoy shopping for shoes and books, after all - but trying to work with this so that friends and family have registry info to reference regardless of where they live and which stores are available to them has been a little bit more difficult than it has been fun. Oh, well… I like the choices we’ve made, including the unexpected, like the telescope and the croquet set.
We got word from a friend about a good DJ who works at a rate that fits our budget, so we’re hoping to hire her. The word is that she’ll play what you want, and she doesn’t get excessively loud and cheesy with her commentary, which is important. I hope this will work out.
Saturday morning we met with the caterer to finalize the menu. Catering has been the biggest nightmare part of this wedding planning, but, truth be told, we haven’t had an absolutely terrible time with it. It’s just that the original three caterers we met with, despite recommendations and reputations, proved to be flaky. While that’s good in a pie crust, it’s not so good in a caterer.
One forgot she had a meeting with us and thought our request to keep the cost of the food at a certain dollar amount per guest ridiculous. From talking with her, it also seemed like she would have been determined to do things her way even if we had definite ideas and agreements about how certain things should be. It seemed that we’d probably spend a certain amount of time arguing with her about how things should be done, and, really, who wants to deal with that?
Another seemed to listen to us with an understanding and sympathetic ear when we met with her initially, but when her sample menus arrived in the mail, it turned out that she really hadn’t paid any attention to our concerns at all. Plus, she skewered everything, from fruit to chicken to vegetables. Then, I felt, she tried to strongarm us into accepting her as our caterer by calling to say we needed to make a decision because she had several other people interested in that date and waiting to hear about her availability. Hello… try selling used cars because you just might have a talent for that, sweetie.
But the worst was the woman who dangled the menu we really, really wanted in front of us and then failed to deliver on promises of a follow-up meeting or a tasting where we could invite eight to ten family and friends to try things before we settled the menu. There was a lack of professionalism in our exchanges, or lack of exchanges, that made this incredibly frustrating.
However, after this most recent meeting with the caterer, I feel confident that we have found someone who is not only wonderful to work with but who has goals and strategies for entertaining that match our own goals for this event. The caterer is affiliated with a restaurant we both enjoy, and he is able and willing to work with a menu that is vegetarian- and vegan-friendly, while not being off-putting to the omnivores who perhaps aren’t as adventurous in their vegetable-eating experiences as are the vegetarians. It’s going to be a tasty selection of heavy hors d’oeuvres!
Plans are also settled with the florist, who is also proving to be the perfect person to work with. After we met with a few other florists - at least two barely acknowledged Ed’s existence at these meetings and one gave us a shocking quote while two others insisted that they couldn’t work with us until they had fabric swatches of my gown and the bridesmaid dresses - I e-mailed this woman after viewing her website. We met over coffee, she brought a huge number of photo albums with her, and we looked through her portfolio while talking about what I like and don’t like in flowers. (After being ignored by two other florists, Ed refused to deal with florists anymore. So we split responsibilities - he took on the caterers while I took on the florists.)
My cousin Anita is officiating at the ceremony, and we have devised a meaningful exchange of vows, readings, and -- well, I guess ‘platitudes’ is the word -- with her help. My brother Kevin is going to open the ceremony with a welcome to the guests and a reading, and Ed’s sister Mindy will do the second reading. His amazingly talented friend Staci is singing a song we picked out that will, I think, surprise and please most folks, and we kind of hope she’ll feel like performing some more as the reception gets underway.
I have taken my dress in to the seamstress to see about taking in the parts that need taking in; with about five pins in place, she helped me see how lovely the dress will be once it’s fitted properly. We ordered the tuxes last weekend; Ed and his best man in vests and Windsor ties while our dads wear cummerbunds and bow ties. I think the men will look dapper!
The to-do list has grown smaller. We picked out the rings, and now we just need to pick them up. We’ll have to get the license, and to do that I need to dig up proof that I had some inoculation or other when I was a child. And we’ve got some decisions to make about what to do for a honeymoon. That’ll be nice. I’m really looking forward to spending some time away from all this with my husband.
Invitations are done. It took a while to find the right thing, but I love what we ended up using. The invitations are hand-crafted, following a design by our friend Kristin. A pale green cardstock has had applied to it a 3-dimensionsional lily-of-the-valley design and the words of the invitation printed on ivory card stock. It’s a really beautiful design, and each invitation looks great.
(Amy, Kristin, and my brother Kevin and I worked on assembling the invitations one weekend. Our mantra for much of the process was, “At least the glue dries clear. Thank goodness the glue dries clear.” And, indeed, it does! *smile*)
I addressed the envelopes, and then Ed and I stuffed them. The invitation, a half-sheet with a map, directions to Bloomington, and hotels info, a stamped response postcard, and - for those involved - an invitation to the rehearsal dinner are all went out in the mail. It feels good to have this much accomplished! And the RSVP postcards have been coming in…
We have registered for gifts at a few places, and a couple showers have been planned, one back home in Virginia (this weekend - so we’re on the road) and one here in Indiana (in two weeks). Before we got into it, I had thought that this part of things would be fun - I love shopping for dishes and bed linens almost as much as I enjoy shopping for shoes and books, after all - but trying to work with this so that friends and family have registry info to reference regardless of where they live and which stores are available to them has been a little bit more difficult than it has been fun. Oh, well… I like the choices we’ve made, including the unexpected, like the telescope and the croquet set.
We got word from a friend about a good DJ who works at a rate that fits our budget, so we’re hoping to hire her. The word is that she’ll play what you want, and she doesn’t get excessively loud and cheesy with her commentary, which is important. I hope this will work out.
Saturday morning we met with the caterer to finalize the menu. Catering has been the biggest nightmare part of this wedding planning, but, truth be told, we haven’t had an absolutely terrible time with it. It’s just that the original three caterers we met with, despite recommendations and reputations, proved to be flaky. While that’s good in a pie crust, it’s not so good in a caterer.
One forgot she had a meeting with us and thought our request to keep the cost of the food at a certain dollar amount per guest ridiculous. From talking with her, it also seemed like she would have been determined to do things her way even if we had definite ideas and agreements about how certain things should be. It seemed that we’d probably spend a certain amount of time arguing with her about how things should be done, and, really, who wants to deal with that?
Another seemed to listen to us with an understanding and sympathetic ear when we met with her initially, but when her sample menus arrived in the mail, it turned out that she really hadn’t paid any attention to our concerns at all. Plus, she skewered everything, from fruit to chicken to vegetables. Then, I felt, she tried to strongarm us into accepting her as our caterer by calling to say we needed to make a decision because she had several other people interested in that date and waiting to hear about her availability. Hello… try selling used cars because you just might have a talent for that, sweetie.
But the worst was the woman who dangled the menu we really, really wanted in front of us and then failed to deliver on promises of a follow-up meeting or a tasting where we could invite eight to ten family and friends to try things before we settled the menu. There was a lack of professionalism in our exchanges, or lack of exchanges, that made this incredibly frustrating.
However, after this most recent meeting with the caterer, I feel confident that we have found someone who is not only wonderful to work with but who has goals and strategies for entertaining that match our own goals for this event. The caterer is affiliated with a restaurant we both enjoy, and he is able and willing to work with a menu that is vegetarian- and vegan-friendly, while not being off-putting to the omnivores who perhaps aren’t as adventurous in their vegetable-eating experiences as are the vegetarians. It’s going to be a tasty selection of heavy hors d’oeuvres!
Plans are also settled with the florist, who is also proving to be the perfect person to work with. After we met with a few other florists - at least two barely acknowledged Ed’s existence at these meetings and one gave us a shocking quote while two others insisted that they couldn’t work with us until they had fabric swatches of my gown and the bridesmaid dresses - I e-mailed this woman after viewing her website. We met over coffee, she brought a huge number of photo albums with her, and we looked through her portfolio while talking about what I like and don’t like in flowers. (After being ignored by two other florists, Ed refused to deal with florists anymore. So we split responsibilities - he took on the caterers while I took on the florists.)
My cousin Anita is officiating at the ceremony, and we have devised a meaningful exchange of vows, readings, and -- well, I guess ‘platitudes’ is the word -- with her help. My brother Kevin is going to open the ceremony with a welcome to the guests and a reading, and Ed’s sister Mindy will do the second reading. His amazingly talented friend Staci is singing a song we picked out that will, I think, surprise and please most folks, and we kind of hope she’ll feel like performing some more as the reception gets underway.
I have taken my dress in to the seamstress to see about taking in the parts that need taking in; with about five pins in place, she helped me see how lovely the dress will be once it’s fitted properly. We ordered the tuxes last weekend; Ed and his best man in vests and Windsor ties while our dads wear cummerbunds and bow ties. I think the men will look dapper!
The to-do list has grown smaller. We picked out the rings, and now we just need to pick them up. We’ll have to get the license, and to do that I need to dig up proof that I had some inoculation or other when I was a child. And we’ve got some decisions to make about what to do for a honeymoon. That’ll be nice. I’m really looking forward to spending some time away from all this with my husband.
