99 Days Until the Wedding

We're in the home stretch here, folks. Things are getting a little down to the wire.... and there's still a lot to do. So much for my wanting to be all done planning by this time two years ago (if you do the math, I wanted to plan the whole wedding in our first month of being engaged & then be done).

So I think we're finished with the guest list. Mostly because it's time to start addressing them so they can go out on time. I have to address about 4 invitations a day if I'm going to get them done. You'd think this wouldn't be difficult. But if you really thought that, then you might not know me as well as you thought. I'm such a terrible procrastinator. I'm taking Grandma a sample of the invite so she can have the post office people weigh it to see if it's going to need extra postage.

I finally emailed the florist... I hope she gets back to me & is still able to do the flowers for the wedding.

I have to stop back at Scrapbook Station this weekend & hope that they'll take back some of the paper I bought in haste last time I was in. I just need to exchange it for some different colors... and the package hasn't been opened... so I might be able to convince them to take it. Otherwise, I'll just have a TON of yellow & purple paper.

We ought to be finally signing our contract for the Hall this week when we meet with Father Ritzert... and I'm going to get the engagement announcement in the mail first thing tomorrow. We're also meeting with the Balloon lady this week.

I need to call Amy J & see when we can get together about the music (Amy if you're reading this & I haven't called or emailed you, call me!)... and we need to make up our minds about the readings & ask people to read them.

Matt's wedding task for this week is to make some decisions about beverages with his dad... things like how much is he willing to spend, will he buy non-alcoholic stuff too or just the alcohol, how does he feel about small champagne bottles for on the tables (instead of having to have someone go around & pour champagne for Steve's toast).

We should also probably try to get out to the custom ring place in New Castle soon so that we can start talking to them about rings... if not for both of us at least for me. My engagement ring has just enough curve to the sides of it that wearing it with a plain band won't quite look right so I'd like to have a special ring made that I can wear in between the engagement ring and a traditional wedding band... so that I can wear the whole set or if I need to not wear the diamond for some reason I can still wear my wedding band by itself.

I've started lists for my DJ & photographer... soon I should have those finished... I should probably work on them a little bit more this evening instead of sitting around blogging about it.

104 Days Until the Wedding

Matt & I recently decided that we didn't want to have a traditional guestbook. We came to this conclusion for several reasons...
1. I couldn't find one that I liked well enough to ask Matt if we could buy it
2. I'd end up re-writing everyone's name that was in the guestbook and putting it into a scrapbook
3. After I did that, I'd never look at the guestbook again
4. Parents don't like to let kids sign guestbooks for some odd reason and I dislike that.

So... we decided that we'd like our guests to help us make a guestbook/scrapbook.

Lisa bought very pretty single-use cameras to put on the tables, so everyone can take pictures of each other. Then instead of a guestbook table with the guestbook and a fancy pen we're going to have sort of a craft table. We'll have various shapes, sizes and colors of paper and a wide variety of pens. Everyone can choose the size, shape and color of their piece of paper and pick out the pen of their choice, sign their names and decorate the paper however they choose. Then, we'll develop the pictures and use them along with the guestbook paper pieces to put together an informal scrapbook album of our wedding day. This way, we have a book that tells us who was at the wedding and all ages can contribute. It's very kid friendly. The kids will have a great time with the pretty colors :o)

Today, I went out to look for paper to use for this grand adventure. I was very fortunate to find some wonderful self-adhesive papers already cut down to 4.5" x 6.5". I bought two different color families to start and plan to buy two or three more by June. I also got some small squares in 8 different colors. I'll be able to use my fun scissors to cut the larger pieces down in to halves and quarters and that will give four different sizes of papers to put out.

The trick to this will be what we end up with as far as the pictures. Hopefully not everyone will use the cameras on the tables to just take pictures of us cutting the cake & other such random things.

We also booked our honeymoon recently. We're going to Minnesota to the Mall of America and Minneapolis. We decided that if we couldn't afford to go on my dream trip to Rome/Vatican City that we should go somewhere neither of us had ever been. It was a very difficult task but thanks to the cow postcard from when one of Lisa's friends visited the Mall of America, we came up with a place.

I just got off the phone with my grandma and she's offered to pay for the postage for our invitations. My grandma is awesome. Now I really have to get on the ball with finalizing my guest list and all that good stuff.

Things left to do:
*SHOE SHOPPING!!
*Flowers
*Pay for the Hall
*An engagement announcement for the newspaper
*Put together favors
*Call the Balloon lady again
*Discuss ceremony music with Amy J.
*pick readings etc for Ceremony
*ask people to read at the Ceremony
*finish picking songs for reception
*figure out what pictures we want the photographers to take
*purchase beverages
*buy rings
*put together the guestbook kit
*send invitations
*create seating chart based on responses to said invitations

121 Days Until the Wedding

Matt & I picked up the invitations last weekend. They rock. We also got personalized match books and cute little personalized napkins. Be not fooled: there will be NO smoking anywhere near my reception. NONE. Matches are for candles and campfires and other fun non-cancer causing activities. Got it? Good. Yay.

Things left to do:
*SHOE SHOPPING!! (LISA - DID YOU FIND SHOES YET????)
*Flowers
*Paying for the Hall
*An engagement announcement for the newspaper
*Put together favors
*Call the Balloon lady again
*Discuss ceremony music with Amy J.
*finish picking songs for reception
*figure out what pictures we want the photographers to take
*purchase beverages
*buy rings
*book a honeymoon
*send invitations
*create seating chart based on responses to said invitations
**************************HAVE FUN!!!!*******************************