checkity check check

Invitations are officially out of my hands. Mailed those off Monday afternoon and by Tuesday afternoon people were starting to receive them! I've been getting some compliments on my DIY attempt. I'll try to take some pictures this weekend when I'll actually be around when there's sunlight. I'm still working pretty much sunrise to sunset with minimal lunch breaks.

Also this weekend is my (1st) bridal shower! I'm just so excited to see my girls and family. I was having a bit of an outfit crisis though. 2 bridal showers, bachelorette party, rehearsal dinner, and then the honeymoon in NYC. I'm a devout fashion addict. Luckily I have a bad habit of buying dresses on a whim. So I went through my wardrobe and realized I pretty much had all the events covered.

The past couple weeks have been rough relationship-wise. It seems like for the past few years, Fiance has worked early morning shifts. Then pretty much right after we moved in together he got switched to closing shift which means he doesn't get home until around 10 pm, and I have to wake up at 5 am and I'm one of those who needs lots and lots of sleep, so I usually am already in bed by 10. So we haven't really seen much of each other lately. He's been working at least one day of the weekend also. We're about 6.5 weeks away from the wedding and I feel like we haven't had any time to grow our relationship. stupid work.

all around the world...

So the guest list for this wedding has been very...fluid. It's been a lot of phone calls/emails with our parents, post-its with addresses all over my life. It started with our immediate families and closest friends, people we talk to on a regular basis (not just facebook birthday greetings once a year). I'm just glad it's not terrible etiquette that some people will be getting invites but never got save-the-dates. And it's not like we have an A list/B list. More that I'm scatterbrained, my parents forgot to mention someone, (or fiance still hasn't gotten his friend's addresses for me...haha) and we've made some new very close friends over the past couple months.

I finally just got everyone & their addresses into a little address book, because that is just so much easier for me to look at than any word document or spreadsheet. Technically we have 147 people including spouses, (or long-term established significant others - we're kinda playing this one by ear) and children. However, in my family, it is customary to include the extended relatives (i.e. my parents' aunts & uncles, cousins, second cousins...) in all invites, announcements, and christmas card lists. Though no one ever actually shows up to anything and they are spread out all over the US, though particularly in the midwest and east coast. There's about 40 of these family members so that cuts the list down.

I'm understanding why so many people are doing the e-vite thing these days. Not only it is simpler and less paper, it's just so much easier to get ahold of people in this day and age electronically. I've already had to update about 20 addresses just since sending out the save-the-dates! I have a lot of retired relatives that spend summer in one place and winter in another. And I have a lot of young 20s and/or still in college friends who bounce around between different living arrangements often. Which brings me to 2 more reasons why the actual guest list will diminish. 1) Many of my friends are 20-somethings and/or in college and can't afford to travel to the wedding. and 2) Some of my friends are way too awesome and keep traveling all over the world so a) I can't keep track of them and/or b) they will be out of country for the wedding. I know for a fact one friend will be in Peru and another will be in Uganda.

My feelings totally aren't hurt by anyone not being able to make it. I know they all love me and they are leading crazy awesome lives. They will be there for me in other ways and I will be there for them too. A Wedding is not the be-all, end-all friendship determinator.

Even if every single other person were to show up. Say all those 2nd cousins decided that February in Iowa on the farm is pretty darn cold and an excuse to go to California sounds like a pretty good idea. It wouldn't be a big deal. The more the merrier as far as I'm concerned. I know that can't be the case for all weddings out there. But for us, we're serving hors d'ouevres and dessert buffet, not a sit-down meal. The venue is my future parents-in-law's house which is plenty big enough to hold extra people. We have some flexibility.

brown paper, white paper, stick it together with the tape, the tape of love*

I spent all day today printing our invitations, envelopes and cutting RSVP cards with a paper cutter. I may be a bit biased but I think they've turned out beautifully! It's amazing what a decent printer and MS Word can really do. I did invest in some quality paper from Paper Source. I purchased our save-the-date from them and was impressed with the quality and pricing. Fiance and I went into one of their stores a few weeks back, which was quite lovely, and stocked up on a few different shades of paper and envelopes for our whole ensemble. I downloaded a few free fun and unique fonts from this website and designed everything myself. I'll take some photos at some point. The hardest part of all of this was getting my new-to-me printer set up and working properly. Everything else was a piece of cake, and quite a bit cheaper than anything I've seen online. DIY success!

My first bridal shower is in less than 2 weeks and I've noticed a few items have started disappearing off our registry! So excited!

Next task: Start printing up Thank You cards. I have procrastinated on pretty much everything...but I need to be on the ball with those

*p.s. I couldn't resist the flight of the conchords "cello tape" reference... =)

blue christmas

Today was a half day at work but I still got there early and worked through lunch and ended up putting in 8 hours anyway. Work is totally kicking my butt, I love what I'm doing but there's so much to do, I've been working some really long hours and it sounds like it won't stop for the next couple months...perfect, all my time leading up to the wedding. I'm very glad I delegated the heck out of all this stuff. I'm totally over planning anything else. My mom is on the ball with most of the logistical stuff at this point: ordering table cloths, blocking rooms at the hotel. I just answer her questions and I'm good with going along with whatever we've got going at the moment. I'm ready to just show up at this point. I really am not concerned with any more details. (edit: i totally almost forgot the ONE item on my to-do list: print the dang invites! we bought the paper last weekend. now to hook up the printer...)

Fiance and I actually get to go home, albeit for a 3-day (hopefully 4 if he can get monday off) weekend which includes drive time to Northern California (400ish miles) both ways. I'm looking forward to seeing our families. One year we'll actually plan and sort out Christmas Day a little better. The past 4 years we keep ending up driving back and forth a million times between my parents, his mom and stepdad and his dad and stepmom. At least they all live in a 10 minute radius. But different relatives like my grandparents or his niece and nephews would be there at different times (or usually show up to the respective houses at the same time so we're splitting an hour or so between 2 houses). This whole visiting with family/holiday planning was part of our marriage preparation classes. I think we might need to discuss in more detail after we're married.

I'm getting by alright and going to bed at grandma o'clock so I'm getting enough sleep. The worst thing is it just doesn't feel like christmastime to me. christmas is my favorite time of year. yet this year I've hardly listened to christmas music, or done much baking or christmas shopping or even decorating. Tomorrow is christmas eve and at the moment it just feels like another day.

la dee dah

So my mom and her bff Suzy played hooky from work today - so that they could go do wedding errands. They're the cutest! They hit the thrift stores. And put together tablescapes, when I finally talked them after work they were on about idea number 23. Suzy has become the wedding planner. she has a billion ideas and they're all fantastic and she doesn't mind taking on a million DIY duties. She lives for this stuff. My mom has been trying on dresses. She found some awesome glass beverage dispensers at TJ Maxx for under $20 each. You guys, delegation is a godsend. I solidified and explained my ideas early on and now I have let go of the reins. I trust my mom and Suzy and I know from experience that beautiful things will happen. and I'm getting so excited just to be marrying fiance that I'm not even worried about the rest.

In other news, I finally sent the save-the-dates!! They're only about a month and a half late but...shhh no one else knows that. Lessons learned: a) I'm printing address labels for the invites. fo sho. also (as my mother pointed out) then we can reprint the labels for thank you cards! genius! b) I need to get one of those sponge-y things for sealing envelopes. Because licking them was getting gross. Why has no one at least made that adhesive stuff mint flavored or something??? c) Undecided on postage. I mailed them on my lunch break and there was a huge line so I just went to the little kiosk and got 3 packs of the ugly liberty bell stamps. I know myself well enough at this point to know that I won't be scouring ebay for vintage stamps. But I know the post office at least offers some with slightly more visual interest than brown bells? I also know just about no one looks at stamps and those darn 44 cent things get thrown away. we'll see how pressed for time I am when it comes to the invites.

Also, I have some exciting news, just waiting for all the details to come next week before I spread the word... :)))))

JKLM....blah blah blah

So...I've finished all the "L's" for addressing save the dates. I'm kind of ready to give up now. Which is bad because my last name starts with M, as well as the majority of my family and a large number of friends end up later in the alphabet. So I'm not even remotely half way through. It's getting a bit boring and tedious. I see why printed labels are gaining acceptance. I don't even want to think about how I'd have to do all this AGAIN for the actual invites. Unfortunately I also don't have a printer at the moment...it is stored away in a box at fiance's. Nor can I afford the ink.

I tend to do this a lot with big projects. Plan and imagine to my heart's content. Make lists, spreadsheets and cover every possible surface with post-its containing well thought out and logical ways to accomplish ideas. When it comes time to actually DO it, I lose patience quickly and immediately find the easiest way out... not a very good character trait.

updates updates

well I managed to get (most of) the addresses I needed! maybe my procrastination is being cured!

next step: actually write the addresses on the envelopes and take them to the post office...crap.

Um here's the deal. I'm realllllllly good at planning and talking things out. I'm AWFUL at executing and following through (not on big stuff, just little things). Procrastination is hereditary (ok maybe not, but I definitely learned it from my mama), but that's no excuse. I think I've been trying so hard to not procrastinate that instead I've just been delegating everything to everyone else. that works right?


My relationship with Fiance is excellent, getting better every day actually. We've been realizing just how much we missed out on during the long distance portion of the past four years. All the daily struggles and day-to-day growth that we never got to see in each other. It really did set us back. We feel like we're finally on the same page again and moving forward. We can't wait to start living together. Yeah, we're kind of old school and won't be moving in together until a month or 2 before the wedding. That will be a whole new experience! I won't get into all our reasons behind that other than that I'm grateful to have these few months to truly live on my own and be independent and that when we get married there will be so many new things. It's a beginning, a fresh start and it'll be tangible in so many different ways.

I've barely even thought about the wedding these past couple weeks. Is that weird? We're five months out and I swear I've gone whole days without thinking about it.
a) Aside from getting these darn save the dates out the door, I have zero responsibilities right now. And I trust everyone else involved so I know I have nothing to worry about (for the first time in my life! i'm a class a worrywart).
b) Life is crazy. I'm still working long days. I'm one of those people who needs 9+ hours of sleep to function properly. And my body can't really deal with too much caffeine or sugar so I'm trying to avoid coffee and candy (the poisons of choice of my coworker). I love my job I just wish I knew how to stop being so darn exhausted all.the.time. I mean, I know this is the "real world" now, but I feel zombified most days. Also my skin doesn't like this lifestyle change. Need to save my pennies for a facial...

Fun story? I got invited to a charity dinner for MS on Monday night in Beverly Hills by my work. We're talking $500 a plate dinner.And there was  a cancellation so Fiance got to come too!  My celeb sighting skills are terrible. But Donny Osmond performed...haha. He's quite a character... Apparently Nia Vardalos, Selma Blair, and Joey McIntyre (from new kids on the block!) were also there. Ryan Reynolds was the "honorary" chair, which apparently means "not coming" chair. darn. Adam Sandler was a major contributer but I didn't see anything in the press release about him going. It was a beautiful cause though, with some majorly inspiring stories. Fiance is not a fan of social events, but he's trying to break into the film industry which means he will be attending a lot more of these in the future. (I don't mind!)

edit: dear Macys wedding registry. thank you for telling me there's only 150 days left till the wedding. that feels like way less than 5 months. for some reason that freaks me out. even though there's nothing to do. what the heck?!

ventilation

you've got to be kidding me UPS. package number 2 should have been here the 2nd. Instead here's what I find:

Hmmm. That's funny. I have not spoken to this elusive UPS delivery person. I definitely don't have any emails or missed calls from you. who is this "customer" you've been consulting? where is this UPS facility? and why is there no customer service phone number on your website?!?!?! ahhhhhhhhhhh! just give my darn envelopes!

later...
so I learned the trick. call the hotline and keep pressing 0 until the recorded lady goes away and you can speak to an actual live human! basically my understanding is UPS fails at delivering to apartments. If you are not standing at the door when they arrive then they will just chuck your package into the "goes to UPS facility" pile. I guess apartment managers are not worthy of signing the UPS log in your place. then it sits at some semi-local UPS store for only 5 days unbeknownst to you (unless you are OCD about checking tracking numbers...which thanks now I will be). At least the customer service rep apologized.

well...what to do. I was planning on having lots of wedding stuff shipped to me. But it's kind of a pain to have to go pick up all my shipments 5 miles away (and friends in the heart of LA, 5 miles could take anywhere between 10 minutes and half an hour or more. especially since we'll be going right after I get off work, yay rush hour! at least the place doesn't close until 7). Plus picking up your stuff kind of defeats the purpose of online shopping.

Oh the battles I never imagined fighting during wedding planning. It seems to be the stuff that you would never expect to be so difficult. And I understand this is not remotely close to the end of the world, I'm really over the UPS part of this whole thing. This is my little corner to vent and share experiences right? but something as simple as shipping a package? we've only been doing that in the world for how long?? kind of reminds me of this bit from Mitch Hedberg:
"This product that was on TV was available for four easy payments of $19.95. I would like to have a product that was available for three easy payments and one complicated payment. We can't tell you which payment it is, but one of these payments is going to be hard. The mailman will get shot, the envelope will not seal, the stamp will be in the wrong denomination. Good luck. That last payment must be made in wampum."
Yep. Wedding planning will be mostly a smooth ride. But without warning, one tiny little thing will go in a complete opposite direction, defying all logic. And this is how brides end up spending 2 hours on a wedneday night ranting and raving over something like paper. no we're not monsters or unreasonable. we just got hit with the complicated payment and must rescue the mailman, invent new adhesive and resort to securing dollar bills to the envelope. and find a way to re-institute wampum as a form of currency.

even later...(after I have completely regained my wits though my night has been rendered useless).
Because Fiance is one smart cookie, we have a new plan of attack. turns out this paper supply company has storefronts in the area. so we will just physically waltz in and deal with them first hand. Cut out the UPS middleman. and if the store doesn't have everything we need? well then i'm having it shipped to the store and THEY can deal with the people in brown socks.

one step closer

We have less than six months to go now and time is NOT slowing down!

Our save the date magnets came! And we are quite pleased.
I went with Vistaprint. They had excellent bulk pricing specials and simple, easy to edit templates (Though I feel like their website isn't the most user-friendly ever). Other magnet sites I found were triple the price per magnet and had really crazy/complicated designs and backgrounds, none of which really went with our style. I was a bit surprised by their shipping costs though. $20 for 7 day shipping? That was the cheapest/slowest option. Seemed expensive to me for 100 lightweight 4"x5" magnets but maybe that's just me.

UPS gets a D- on delivery though. I did a bit of whining on that portion (Fiance can attest). According to my tracking number the package was supposed to arrive last Wednesday. Instead I got it yesterday, Monday. There were 2 "attempts" by the delivery person and it stated "customer not available. Will try again".
a) I live in an apartment building
b) my buzzer doesn't work
c) There is a prominent sign next to the buzzer that says "UPS, deliveries, etc. please bring all packages to the management office around the corner" with a LARGE ARROW.
d) Both attempts were made between the hours of 8 and 5. I work 8-5, so even if my buzzer did work I wouldn't have been there to get it.
Apartment buildings aren't new to the world, especially mine. And there's no way I was the first person to ever receive a package via UPS in my building. So really, what's the problem here??
Also, the box was FALLING APART. Like totally destroyed. There was supposed to be one of those plastic air-filled bags as padding but by the time it got to me it was completely deflated. Luckily I had magnets where the info is printed on vinyl, so they are heavy duty and all stuck together. If that was paper in that package? Half of it would have definitely fallen out and/or been bent/ripped and someone would be receiving an angry phone call.

Fiance stated that these made everything seem more real. Like this whole wedding thing is actually happening. Cute. :)

always the invites

For some reason, it's the paper goods that tempt me the most. Look at how pretty these menus are from Sunday Suppers! The gray cardstock with white calligraphed letters...How is it possible that in this day and age computer printers have yet to utilize white ink. My printer and wallet cannot handle printing gray ink with white ink over hundreds of sheets of cardstock. And I don't have the patience for calligraphy (or budget to allocate to it). After briefly attempting to come up with a plan involving getting the whole invite turned into a custom rubber stamp and finding white ink/embossing powder (bahhhh wedding brain is truly a disease)...I have decided to go the less-stressful route. Gray envelopes that I will be hand-addressing in white while the invites themselves will be on white/ivory with words printed in gray. Unless I get really time-crunched (aka lazy) and go with printed labels. It's 2010, I can only follow so much etiquette before throwing in the towel.

At the moment, my preliminary budget estimate puts us at $150 for approximately 100 invites and that includes: invite, outer envelope, insert for map, reply card and reply card envelope and printer ink. Savings FTW? It pleases the analytical logical part of me that can't reconcile the fact that other than myself, mom and grandma, these will all be thrown away (or optimistically, recycled).

progress

Ok this whole job thing is catching up with me. Seems like there's never enough hours in the day.

Save the dates ordered! We decided to go magnet-style. And I threw in the towel and ordered them as opposed to printing them myself, because I want to mail them out by the end of the month and this time of my life is not conducive to DIY manic. Once they arrive I'll review the company I used. A little peek?

And that is another peek of the elusive engagement photos. Perhaps tomorrow I'll show you the rest! This one is particular is everyone's favorite for some reason.

We also received a sample menu from the caterers...The pricing seems decent, it'll work with the budget. We'll definitely have to work out the menu items...it was all over the place. Fancy, yummy sounding food, but nothing at all what I envisioned.

I have a slight obsession with Excel spreadsheets. I use them for EVERYTHING. I'm the overanalyzing type in case you hadn't guessed. So the wedding budget has been open on my desktop pretty much constantly as I tweak and alter categories and numbers. I've been honing it in as I get a better idea of how much different things will cost. I'm pretty excited because right now it's $100 under our target price right now, including my dress, his suit and our rings. Obviously we're 6 months away and there's a zillion little things that will come up, but it's a good place to start right?

Check Check Check

Alright friends. Now that I'm officially done with school it's time to start crossing things off my list. I'm spending time with my mom this week and we've been trading wedding ideas back and forth.

I finally visited our little ceremony church. It's even better than the photos my parents took. So perfect for us.

I've been working on the design of our save the dates. We're going super simple and basic and convenient. I plan on ordering some magnets with an engagement photo and all the basic info. I was too afraid people would throw out a piece of paper. So if they can just stick it on their refrigerator for the next 8 months and be reminded of our date and website. And our cute smiling faces. Vistaprint has excellent prices.

We've been working on invitation templates and wording too. Thinking about going with a more general and casual "together with our parents" to avoid trying to figure out the proper way to write out Fiance's remarried parents' names. Still haven't found a design that I love, though I've got the wording and fonts down. (Using an old typewriter font as a nod to Fiance's screenwriting profession.) I may eat my words later, but my goal is to get invites printed and done well in advance. Timing on things is going to get really tricky, our wedding is the last weekend in February. Mailing the invites 8 weeks in advance puts us right at January 1. I definitely want to make sure all holidays are over and people are done with christmas cards before trying to send wedding invites. I also don't want to spend my holidays printing/addressing invites. November also happens to contain 6 birthdays in our family plus thanksgiving. So invites need to be done, and even addressed by the beginning of November at the latest. Also my goal for most DIY type projects. Then I can minimize stress during the holidays and save final to-dos for after the craziness.

And with paper items comes guest list. We need to figure that one out still, start collecting addresses.

paper battle

I can't help but feel like assembling graduation announcements is practice for wedding invites. It scares me a little. There's half a page of instructions on how to put this craziness together. inner envelopes, outer envelopes, sealing stickers, tissue to cover the text inside the announcement, addressing styles, folding directions. I kind of feel like emily post or martha stewart will jump out from behind my door if I screw up.

So this makes me want to take the easy route invite wise. ONE envelope. Possibly print address labels (GASP, blasphemy I know. What can I say? Sometimes I can be a rebel.) There's no way I can convince Fiance to spend a week putting together invites. Well, he'd probably do it if I asked because he like loves me and all that, but I'd end up being the whiney one...

the culprit

so here's the stationery that caused me to have a minor sanity blackout.

 

  

(by linda & harriett)

 

(found via snippet and ink)

So pretty right? Super clean and simple, but just a little bit of quirky personality with the handwritten names (and for some reason extending it to the very edge just gets me). Linda & Harriett are very talented designers and have beautiful things. but for reals, paper goods just cannot be 20% of our budget. and while I love prettiness, paper goods aren't really my thing. 

I TOTALLY understand graphic designers and the like going all out on this stuff, because it's their line of work, they have a vested interest in this particular aesthetic. But as an engineer, I err on the side of practicality. I'm more about architectural/space aesthetics and food (food+alcohol>>paper). I understand the invite is the first thing that a guest will see "representing your wedding" or whatev but a) they're gonna throw it away after the wedding b) or they'll scrapbook it c)if they're judging my wedding based on a piece of paper with ink then i shouldn't have invited them to the wedding d)we personally know everyone we're inviting and talk to them regularly, therefore they'll know the aesthetics of our wedding e)or they're boys and don't care (about prettiness, boys that we know are ultimate boys' boys, but not the jerk kind) f)they'll throw it away.

so there you go. we're printing them ourselves. fiance's roommate is a movie editor/photographer/adobe pro (/genius/one-of-those-people-who's-good-at-everything, but he's nice so you can't hate him for it). So we can have him tweak the design if needed. target and michael's have some decent letterpressed cardstock that you can print onto. we'll see. but moral of the story, this is not a high priority