I've been getting the blogging itch, and have been inspired by so many other smart, clever, quick witted people who just blog about all sorts of stuff, just to keep the world interesting. I've always got lots on my mine, and no where to put it, so I find that blogging is a great outlet, and allows me to put a little bit of myself out there.
So first and foremost, I'm getting hitched! That's right, my boyfriend of 6 years popped the question this past July on my birthday, and it was perfect, and beautiful, and romantic, and everything I could have ever wanted and more in a moment like that. Now that you're caught up, you can imagine the newly formed shit storm that has spun into my life. All in a very good way of course. I thought for sure having a wedding on the brain would interfere with studies, but things are actually going quite smoothly.
I never realized how important getting engaged and married was until I fell into myself. Before, I just thought, "Oh hey, cool, whatever." But now that its me, and I hear about someone else who is engaged or planning a wedding I get really into it. I actually want to know all the slimey details.
Same goes for the engagement ring. Before, I never noticed the diamond rings, and when people told me they just had got engaged, looking at their ring didn't even cross my mind. In knowing that, I'm always really surprised and flattered when strangers notice and say nice things about my ring. I assume that they too just got engaged, like me, or that my the sparkle of my diamond has stabbed them right in the retina. Why else would they care?
Wedding planning requires a LOT of organizing. If you are a scatter brain, unlike moi, you should probably hire an outside brain to assist you in the wedding process. I consider myself an 'on-the-ball' person, so I think planning and organizing comes naturally. I'm addicted to surfing the net, so finding venues, and ideas, and all that good wedding stuff just fell into place. I don't know if you will feel the same way, but wedding magazines were in NO way any help AT ALL. NONE. I found them very overwhelming, and I found it hard to focus on one central theme. I still find that very hard to do now. I'm constantly bombarding my decorator, and florist, and baker with all the different pictures I stumble upon online. Its hard to keep my eyes from wandering.
My advice is to REALLY have a theme. Like, for real. Have your colours picked out, and go from there. I read in some literature that you should start with two really bold colours, and then choose a third neutral color. For me, I really loved the idea of having a peacock feather themed wedding. The rich bright hues of blues, and greens, and purples really stood out for me. So for my two bold colors I chose a rich royal blue and teal, and for my neutral I chose a very light burlap sack brown. Right now, I'm hoping to achieve a whimsical backyard garden-like feel. With outdoor lights, and cards hanging from clotheslines. Okay, sounds silly, but trust me, in my brain it looks magical.
Another really great tool that I recommend all couple utilize is a wedding website. The Wedding Channel is where ours is set up and I love it. Easy to navigate, lots of different templates and colour combinations to choose from, and you can do anything you want. Oh, and its FREE. I know of quite a few wedding websites where you get a trial period, and then you have to pay. Pay? Do those websites know that these totally awesome free ones are out there? Stupid.Lets talk venue. Boy did we strike gold with this one. We decided to go with a catering company called Roma Catering. Why? Because they have all inclusive wedding packages. You heard right. I'm not talking some cheap, stingy, trailer trash event. They put on a classy catered affair to remember. What's included? For the price they give you per head, which ranges from ~$40-$70 depending on the meals you choose, it includes everything. Everything? Everything. Such as the venue, a DJ, linens, chair and table rentals, utensils, set up, take down, wait staff, corkage, of course the food, and buttloads more that I can't think of off the top of my head. This was one of the least expensive places we came across, and and it offered so much more than everything we looked at as separates entities.
Invitaions are expensive. All those fancy pocketfolds, patterned paper, and ribbon all assembled for you into a beautiful work of invitation art that you see in magazines, and "real wedding" sections of websites, are all EXPENSIVE. We went over to The Social Page, which is a fancy paper store that specializes in personalized cards and invitations. We weren't really paying attention to the stuff we were adding on, just whatever we liked, we told her to put it together. When she came around with a quote for our 70 invites, including enclosure cards, and all the fancy paper, paper cutting, assembling, printing, etc, it worked out to be over $13 per invitation set! That may seem reasonable for some, but for us, it was through the roof. Even when we asked her to calculate the cost with having them come unassembled, was still about $10 per invite set. By golly, don't get me wrong, their custom cards look fabulous, but fabulous costs an arm and a leg. Or does it?
So what did we do instead? We managed to find online retailers that sold the same items we looked at for way less! Well, not WAY less, but less enough. All we have to do is put in a little elbow grease. For the actual invitations, response cards, and enclosure cards we went with Wedding Paper Divas, which is an online print store. They have anything and everything. Not just for weddings, for any occasian. For the pocketfolds and outer envelopes we ordered through another online store that specializes in unique DIY cards called Envelope Me, I think. Now all we need is glue, and whatever other funky tassles, or buttons, or bells and whistles we want to add.
Next blog: The wedding dress fiasco...
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