Bridesmaid Expectations

One of my closest friends, Mel, is in the midst of planning her wedding and has asked me to be a bridesmaid. I, of course, was delighted and immediately agreed. She was part of my wedding party two years ago and I couldn't wait to be a part of hers.

I then realized something: I don't know what to do. I know how to be a bride. I know how to plan a wedding. I don't know how to be a bridesmaid.

When I was planning my wedding, I didn't want to burden my friends with the stuffing envelopes, making seating arrangements, or even organizing big bachelorette parties. I didn't require them to go with me to every fitting. I picked a color and told them as long as their dresses were all in similar length and that color, they could decide among themselves what dresses they wanted. I didn't want them to follow me around during the reception or help me go to the bathroom. I wanted them to be able to have fun and enjoy themselves. I wanted them to be a part of my wedding but I also knew that I was the one that was getting married so it was my job to get everything ready. They weren't hired help - these are my friends.

Now, as I am on the other side, I don't know what I'm supposed to do. I, of course, took to Google in order to figure out what a bridesmaid is. I've read a couple articles about what you're supposed to do in order to be a "good" bridesmaid and I'm just floored by the way some brides treat their friends. I completely disagree that as a bridesmaid, we're expected to be "willing servants to do her bidding." If a bride has a train on her dress, wouldn't it be bustled so why would anyone need to follow the bride around carrying it? If the bridesmaids are supposed to be getting ready for the wedding, how are they expected to run errands for the bride on the big day? The more I read about what my "duties" are as a bridesmaid, the less I know what I'm supposed to do. Am I actually expected to act as a servant for the next year or however long the planning process takes?

Maybe it is because I truly did not want to burden my own bridesmaids that I have such a jaded view as to what the role of bridesmaid means. I want to be able to be there and lend a hand when I can. I want to be able to help organize the shower and/or bachelorette party. But am I expected to truly be a "servant" during this entire process? Or maybe I'm just reading too much into it. After all, I didn't have all of these requirements and demands.

I know planning a wedding is stressful and it can change a bride's perspective. I've been there. But I have to trust that Mel won't be one of those brides. And, really, if she does, I know I'll stick through it because she's a great friend and we will be after this whole party planning is over. 

How could I almost forget!?

I almost forgot to make a post about this with all of the Harry Potter insanity that has been going on, but my wedding photographer is going to submit one of these photographs for the cover of a bridal magazine! I'm not sure when I'll find out if they chose to use one of them, or if they will even let me know if they don't want to use one, but it is pretty exciting to think about the fact that one of these pictures could be on a magazine!! 

Our Wedding Pictures Are In!

Well, our wedding pictures are in! And, I think we all look pretty great. I'm only going to post a couple of pictures for you all to take a quick look at, if you want to see them all you can visit the website HERE. Just send me a quick message and I"ll get you the password.

I want cake

I've been gone for a little over two weeks and I'm sure you all missed me terribly. For those of you that were wondering how the wedding went, it was amazing! Well, amazing except for one thing... I didn't get any cake! And since people are still telling me how great it was and how delicious it was, it really makes me want some wedding cake.

Anyways... The wedding was absolutely perfect. People loved my dress, they loved the food, they loved the flowers, they loved the music, they loved the flower girl. Actually, I think I may have been upstaged by our flower girl... I'm hoping someone videoed her walk down the aisle because I've heard it was the cutest thing ever. And during the reception, yep, it was all about her. But I don't mind sharing the spotlight with her. She was pretty adorable.

As soon as I get the pictures back from our photographer, you can be sure to see a lot of them. And I'll be writing another post shortly about the honeymoon (aka our time in heaven). And there will be a lot of pictures in that post.

Apathetic

I know this might seem kinda bad, but I'm over this whole wedding.

Not in the sense that I don't want to get married, but I'm tired of dealing with everything.I don't care about the seating chart. I don't care about the escort cards. I don't care about chair covers. I don't care about favors. I don't care about an arch. I don't care about the quartet. I don't care about a makeup artist. I don't care about the music played. I don't care about what anyone is wearing. I don't care about where people are staying.

I know that sounds pretty awful seeing as I'm going to actually see all of those little details together for the first time, but I can't bring my self to care any more. After over a year and a half of planning, I'm done with it all. At the end of the day, is it really going to matter? People will come, see us get married, eat, drink and have fun. Why do I have to worry about all of these little details? Everyone seems shocked that I'm not stressed out beyond belief with only nine days to go, but I'm not. Excited? Yes. Stressed? Most definitely not. Why should I be? I've done everything in my power to get everything planned out and whatever happens happens. And when I try and explain this to people, they're absolutely baffled by my apathy.

But what good does it do me to worry about all of the little details? Just by stressing out about the weather being perfect, the favors suiting everyone, people liking who they are sitting next to for dinner wont change anything. I've done everything I can to make sure things go as smoothly as possible. And if they don't? Oh well.

C'est la vie.

10 Days

There are only ten days until the wedding.

Or twelve days until we're in Mexico.

 Either way you look at it, this is close. And when we got our marriage license last Friday, that really made things real. This is happening. We're getting married!

RSVP Count

Well, our RSVP date was yesterday and we still have a lot of outstanding RSVPs out there. I'm hoping that we'll be getting more this week, but it looks like I get to start calling and emailing people that have yet to respond. So far, our counts stand as such:

Total Invited: 165
Accepts with pleasure: 85
Declines with regrets: 11
Still undecided: 69

RSVP Count

Well, there is now only one week left until all of our RSVP's are due in, and our counts stand as such:

Total Invited: 165
Can't Wait: 67
Party Poopers: 8
Undecided: 90

I'm going crazy trying to figure out who all is coming and who isn't. Also, I need the RSVP's so I can start working on my seating chart!

RSVP Count

Another week has gone by and our RSVP's are slowly coming in. Very, very slowly. So far, this is our count:

Total Invited: 165
Can't wait to party: 60
Party Poopers: 6
Still undecided: 99

Since I'm checking the mail every day, it is a bit discouraging to see that there's one or two in there. So come on people! Send them back!

Favors: Part I

Wedding favors are the type of thing that people will either think are really cute or really dumb. I've noticed that when a couple decides to go with an edible favor, guests seem to like that better than some cutesy little nick-knack. So Austin and I decided to do little boxes of chocolates and miniature wine bottles.We both love wine, and who doesn't like chocolate??

I was able to find all of the boxes for the chocolates several months ago and I've just had them sitting in a box with other wedding related items until is was time to actually start putting them together. A couple weeks ago, I ordered personalized M&M's with our names, date and two pictures on them. I was able to get them in our wedding colors, so I was pretty excited about that little bit of personalization. I've been working on them for about three days now after work and they're done! It was a process and very tedious, but they look super cute! At least, I think so.

Empty favor boxes, ready to be filled

A little orange tissue paper just to add a little extra color

That's right, we're on M&M's

All they need is a little ribbon to finish them off!

All packed up in a box and ready to be taken to the venue day of!

Programs

I've been trying to decide for a couple weeks whether it was actually worth my time to make the programs myself. I've had them all typed up for a couple weeks now, I just couldn't decide how I wanted them to be printed. I had bought all of the paper months ago in anticipation that I would actually be the one to do them all, but with all of the last minute details I've been working on, I wasn't sure if it would all just be too much at the last minute.

Well, I decided to suck it up and do them myself. I already bought the paper, why waste it?! And I didn't really want to have to spend an extra $250 on programs.

I bought a couple packs of the HP Brochure Paper in order to give them a more professional look and I didn't want to use something as thick as cardstock or as flimsy as regular paper. Next up, create a basic MS Word document and create two columns. After that, just input any information you might want to include! I think they ended up coming out quite nicely!

Now to finish printing another 100 of them or so and I'll be able to check one more thing off of my to-do list!!

RSVP Count

Well, another week has gone by and we really haven't gotten more RSVP's back. So far, our counts are:

Invitations sent out: 165
Can't wait to join us:  51
Party poopers: 4
Lolly gagging:110

I know that is really not a bad start, especially since our RSVP date isn't until April 25th, but I'm still stalking our mailbox always hoping for more.

April is just around the corner!

There were a couple things I wanted to get done in March such as:

- Finalize ceremony readings with readers
- Finalize ceremony songs
- Begin working on programs, wording, etc.
- Finish up gifts for the bridal party
- Make escort card holders
- Continue collecting RSVPs
- Have all guys fitted by the end of the month
- Meet with DJ about special songs

Since we didn't get everything done, my To-Do list for April is going to carry over everything as well as:

- Finish up gifts for the bridal party
- Make escort card holders
- Continue collecting RSVPs
- Meet with DJ about special songs  (Meeting set for April 6th)
- Work on, and complete, all wedding favors (chocolates ordered, already have boxes, have labels for all favors, need to order wine)
- Complete ceremony programs
- Have both Bach. parties (set for April 29-May 1)
- Begin calling guests that have not RSVP's
- Create seating chart
- Meet with venue in order to decide all decor

I'm sure there are a million other little details that I will be adding to this list as time goes on this month... I just can't think of anything at the moment. And here I was thinking we didn't have much left to do!

RSVP Count

A an update... This is how our RSVP's are coming along:

Invitations sent out: 165
Can't wait to join us:  38
Party poopers: 4
Lolly gagging: 123

It doesn't seem like a huge improvement over the few that we got in last week. But when we consider that with 165 invitations, that's a total of 215 that we know would bring a guest, that brings it up to a total of 55 that we know are coming. Not a shabby start.

And please people, if your invitation is addressed only to you, that means I don't have you down for a guest. So if you decide to bring a guest, they wont have a seat. At least do me the courtesy of writing down their name so they will have a spot on our seating chart.

My to-do lists are getting smaller!

With the wedding quickly approaching (only 54 days left!), I've been pretty busy with some of the smaller things that I know need to be done. I've realized that for the most part, all I can do at this point s wait for things to fall into place. All of our vendors are booked, things are being paid for, everything has been scheduled... This makes my to-do list pretty small. In the next couple of weeks, all I need to do is:

- Finalize ceremony readings with readers
- Finalize ceremony songs
- Begin working on programs, wording, etc.
- Finish up gifts for the bridal party
- Make escort card holders
- Continue collecting RSVPs
- Have all guys fitted by the end of the month
- Meet with DJ about special songs

Really, I thought the closer I got the more I would have to worry about. All I can do now is rely on my florist to get the flowers done, the caterer to make the food, the guests to send back RSVPs, our quartet to play the music, or DJ to play the right songs... And I hate that this is all things that are out of my control!

RSVP count

Well, our invitations have been out a little over a week and I've been doing some major mailbox stalking lately. I used to be the type of person that would check the mail once every other week, now I'm checking the mail every day. I know my constant eye wont make them come in any faster, but I can't seem to help myself!!

After being out for their first full week, we've already gotten in twelve responses! Ten of them have accepted and only two declined. Out of our original 165, I think 12 is a very respectable start. So let's keep those responses coming!

Place Cards!

I've been toying with the idea for months over a seating chart and I think I finally figured out what I want to do. Austin and I love wine. We drink it all the time and we used to have a huge bowl of wine corks that we just threw out. Why would we need to keep them anyways? What use could I have for old wine corks? I figured it out (only after I threw them out of course): I'm going to use wine corks as place card holders.

I found these online:

but I just couldn't bring myself to spend anywhere from $250-$500 for place cards, so I think I'm going to make them myself.

Since it wouldn't be possible (or something I would suggest trying) for Austin and I to drink 200 bottles of wine in the next two months, we're going to talk to his dad about getting his old wine corks. I guess its something that most wine-o's tend to do, hold on to their old corks, because he has a large jar of his wine corks. If he doesn't have enough for us, I found that you can buy old wine corks on eBay (100 for only $10) and we'll get what we need from them. When I actually start on this process, I'll be sure to let you all know how it goes, but I'm pretty excited to have this idea FINALLY nailed down!

Another month closer

Its been a while since I've posted anything, and that's mostly due to the fact that there isn't anything really to say. I know that with the wedding only two months away, I really should be gearing up for the wedding and working on all of the details but I haven't been. After working and planning an organizing everything for a year and a half, I've gotten burnt out on it all.

I'm already a week into March and I can't say that I've actually gotten anything accomplished yet. All of our invitations are all addressed and sitting in a couple of boxes ready to be mailed out. Austin and I are still in the process of looking for his wedding band but we still haven't been able to find anything that he really likes (that I can afford). Luckily, Austin has been productive. We sat down last week and he finally booked our honeymoon, we're going to Cozumel for a week! He found a great all-inclusive, adults only resort and got a great deal on it. We will be leaving on the Wednesday after the wedding and we'll be gone for a week. That means no phone, no email, no texts, no internet for a whole week! I'm pretty excited about being gone for a whole week, but I know that when I come back I'll have a tone of emails to sort through. But I wont think about that until I get back. No use worrying about something that far in the future.

This weekend, I am going to be productive with wedding stuff. The past month, other than the invitations, I haven't done anything. I know I need to suck it up and get to work so I will. I have an appointment set to have a hair trial on Wednesday and I also have my (hopefully final) dress fitting on Saturday. I know Austin is going to be getting fitted for his tux on Sunday, so I'm going to talk with our ushers/readers to make sure that they get fitted. We are also going to be taking our invitations to the post office some time this week, so another thing checked off of our list. Austin and I also decided that we're going to be taking lessons in order to dance our first dance for the wedding so we should be getting that scheduled soon.

Wow. It looks like I'm back on track and back to being productive!!

February is almost over!

Wow! This month has just flown by! I can't believe that February is almost over, that means we have less than three months to get everything done! Surprisingly, I'm really not that stressed out about things.

I finished putting together, addressing and stamping all 185 invitations this past weekend, and with that taken care of I feel like there is so much less to worry about! I've also been meeting with our florist and event coordinator to get all of the details worked out. Since I changed which flowers I wanted, that is going to push the cost up a little, but I think it will be worth it. Lucky for me, birds of paradise are in season in May. This means that our flowers aren't going to be too expensive. I also reconfirmed our menu since there was a catering company change recently. I've gotten sketches of our cakes and I love the way they are going to look! I've also ordered our guest book and cake serving set and personalized cocktail napkins for the bar! Austin's mom was kind enough to book our transportation for the wedding night and for the wedding party.

I had my second fitting on Saturday for my dress. I went in about a month ago for my first fitting and they had to take it in an inch on each side. On Saturday, we realized it needed to be taken in another half inch on both sides. I guess for all of the fitting issues to have, this is the best one! Most women tend to try to lose weight for their wedding, I can't seem to keep it on! As far as I know, I haven't changed my eating habits really, so I'm not sure how I'm losing all of this weight.

Austin has also been getting things ready for the honeymoon. I'm not sure what all he has taken care of yet, but I do know he's getting it all taken care of. He also submitted all of his paperwork to get his passport (finally!!). He wont give me too much information about what all he has planned, but I know its going to be great.

Another Busy Weekend

Well, this weekend was pretty busy for both of us. Not only did we celebrate Valentine's a little early, we also celebrated Austin's birthday and I had my first wedding shower! Since Austin's birthday is the day after Valentine's and Valentine's was on a Monday this year, I decided to just go ahead and give Austin his presents this weekend.

Friday night I had tickets to the Stars vs. Black hawks game for Austin's Valentine's gift. Since the Black hawks are the reigning Stanley cup champions, the crowd was sold out. I was also able to get a new Stars jersey for my favorite player, Steve Ott. I had tried to order one directly from the NHL but apparently they didn't want my money so I bought it at the game. I guess it was good luck since we went down 3-0 at the end of the first period but managed to come back and tie up the game, eventually winning in a shootout! Shortly after we got home, my MOH, Jessica, got into Dallas! We spent the night talking about all of the exciting things that have been going on in her life and her upcoming trip to France this summer. We also spent a good portion of the night going through old cd's and seeing all of Austin's old music.

Saturday Jessica and I went to my bridal shower hosted by a friend of Austin's mom. I had no idea that there would be about 40 people that so many people would show up just to shower me with gifts! Melanie met us there and spent the day taking pictures for us.

Here's the cake they got for me

Jess had a very important job, collecting bows, ribbons and wrapping paper!

Jess and Callie got us new towels!!

I know, we're just adorable

We also decided to treat Jessica's mom and aunt to dinner at Blue Goose Saturday night since they've both been pretty great with helping get Jessica down here. Even with Jessica's job and school and her mom's job, she's always been able to make sure that Jess has been able to be here for all of the important events. After dinner, Dan and Mel came over with Dani to try out all of our new glasses and bar ware and we were up a bit too late... Luckily I'm the only one that woke up with no hangover since I had an appointment with Savy pretty early in the morning.

Sunday I treated Austin and several of our friends to the Stars vs. Blue Jackets game (which was a pathetic performance on our end...) for his birthday. Even though it was a sad job done on our end and we lost, it was still a lot of fun. We also were able to get the transportation booked for the day of the wedding, so we did get something wedding related done!

Now that we're under the three month mark, we are both in full wedding mode and trying to get it all done in time.