What a wonderful, whirlwind weekend - part 2

I left off my last post getting ready to go to the ceremony.  I so clearly remember putting my dress on in the bedroom and coming into the sitting room to be tied in to my dress - the first person I saw was my friend and bridesmaid Kay - and she burst into tears (happy tears).  It reconfirmed that this was my dress and I was ready.  We got to it, finished getting ready, and took photos.  I was able to take photos with my family, but not with my individual bridesmaids.  We made a note to do that after the ceremony, but never did :-(  

We got into the limo and headed for the church.  My adorable niece and flowergirl Julianne got to ride in the limo with us and was so excited to!  She loved the "big car" and had to sit right next to me.  In fact, all day she kept saying how we were special in our white dresses.  It was precious.  We arrived at the chapel but I had to stay hidden in the limo because there isn't a "bridal room" at the chapel.  I was in the car until it was time for me to meet up with my dad and walk down the aisle.  This is one thing I didn't like - I felt very rushed right from the limo to the end of the aisle - literally.  I would have liked a second to take a deep breath and collect my thoughts.  But away I went down the aisle.  I didn't know where to look - at all the cameras?  At James?  Just straight ahead?  I did my best to smile and didn't even cry - until I got to the front of the chapel and saw every bridesmaid crying.  I quickly looked away and at my dad and James.  My dad gave me away and the rest is a blur.  I do remember at one point Candice, one of the bridesmaid, told me to smile.  While listening to the readings, I didn't even think about my facial expression - I wasn't frowning, but I wasn't smiling either.  Good tip...  Fr. Sean Prince married us and he is awesome and gave a fantastic and moving homily.  I barely got through my vows but I did and we are married!  

We headed off to take pictures (next to The Spa in Colonial Williamsburg and at Colonial Heritage).  Our photographer Gene King of Creative Worth Photography did a spectacular job!  He was patient, thorough, and creative.  He has a lot of experience and it showed.  I can't wait to see his pictures!

The reception was everything I imagined it to be.  We had fun, actually got to eat, and danced.  The only problem - my bustle!  I was so frustrated!  After 4 appointments the bustle was right but wasn't strong enough.  A number of the hooks and eyes popped off and dropped the train.  Before we were even introduced into the reception Laura and Laura bustled my dress 4 times and needed to add 6 safety pins!  I was really crabby about that.  We had such a time trying to get it right and then it didn't hold up - even for 10 minutes!  I had to keep leaving the reception to have them fix the bustle - at least 10 times.  One of our friends even said they saw me out in the lobby messing with my dress more than on the dance floor.  Unacceptable.  I will be calling the bridal salon to let them know - although there is nothing to be done now, they should know that the seamstress didn't do a good job.  

We ended the evening with a few drinks are Pauls and then a stop in the hospitality room.  I highly recommend going to a bar in your wedding dress - free drinks and a lot of attention is so much fun!  James and I spent our first night as husband and wife at The Williamsburg Lodge.  From start to finish the hotel was accommodating, friendly, and professional.  I'd recommend staying there and having a wedding block there to anyone getting married in Williamsburg.

Shout out to Morrison's Floral who did our flowers.  They delivered to three locations and didn't make a single mistake.  The flowers were fresh and gorgeous.  My bouquet was purple and I loved everything about it.  Arlene was really nice and easy to work with.  She took my ideas, which were pretty simple, and ran with them.  She made some suggestions but didn't try to add and make the bouquets or centerpieces more than what I had asked for.

The bridesmaids carried white hydrangeas and I made pins out of Scrabble tiles so the girls knew which bouquet was theirs.

My bouquet - stored in a pickle jar after the wedding day!

 We chose three centerpieces, two had orchids.

So, that was it!  In the blink of an eye James and I are married and the reception is over.  It was seriously everything I imagined.  It was perfect.  

Now, James and I are headed to the beach for a few days and then to Greece for our honeymoon!  When we return, I hope to have the pictures from Gene and our videos!  I will also post a few words of wisdom I've picked up along the way to our big day....

What a wonderful, whirlwind weekend!

Well, that's that - over a year of planning and the day FLEW by!  Our wedding weekend was incredible.  More than I could have imagined.  My family started getting in to town on Tues and we got right to work on the final details - getting the hotel bags together.  We had to put labels on the outside tie a bow on them, and stuff them.  Here's the list of what we included in the bags:
     ~ Water bottles (with college labels)          ~ Virginia is for Lovers bumper sticker
     ~ Shout wipe                                             ~ Williamsburg area guidebook
     ~ Personalized coloring book/crayons       ~ Granola bars
     ~ Homemade sugar cookies (shaped like VA and WI - thanks to Jennifer Pinto!)
    ~ Do Not Disturb door hangers                  ~ Welcome letter from me and James

They turned out great!  And on Wed, we delivered them to the hotels that our guests stayed in.  

Friday included a few hours getting our nails done, setting up for the rehearsal dinner, checking in to the Williamsburg Lodge for the weekend, and getting to the rehearsal.  The rehearsal went really well and everyone got along great.  Here are a few pics from the evening:

James and I gave our parents gifts at the rehearsal for being so supportive to us throughout our lives but especially as we prepared for the wedding.  My sister, Laura, cuts vinyl to make personalized items and she helped me make photo frames and coffee mugs for our parents.  They turned out great! 

Suddenly, it was Saturday morning and we had to get ready for hair and make up.  Katie from Style by Design was awesome and came to do all our hair at the hotel.  This allowed us to relax, eat, and chat while we had our hair done.  If possible, I definitely recommend getting ready this way - so convenient!  Laura (pictured above, in the middle) did my make up and did an amazing job.  Before I knew it, the flowers arrived and so did the photographer.  We got things together and in the blink of an eye I had to get my dress on.  I wasn't nervous or anxious.  I was excited!  We took pictures, got our things together, and headed to the limo.

TO BE CONTINUED...

Details and pictures of the ceremony and reception will be posted soon...!

Final Days...

We're in the final days before the wedding and I have so many emotions - I am excited, anxious, nervous...  Things are falling into place nicely.  We've received all the items we've ordered - garters, guest books, decor - so now it's just getting things together and actually doing what we've been planning for so long!  I have various appointments throughout the week and I'm excited to get to them! My family starts coming in tomorrow (Tues) and we're going to get the hotel welcome bags together, drop them off, drop off items for the reception, get pampered, and try to relax before Sat!

Yesterday, I spent some time working on items for the welcome bags - I removed water bottle labels and replaced them with collegiate duct tape to represent James and I - VT for him and UW for me!  It is a lot of water but I think it's really cute and makes it more personal!

As I mentioned in my last post, I was anxious about receiving the guest book - it came on Sat and it really cute!  The seller wasn't great, but the product is nice!

Finally, I am really, really nervous about my dress.  I LOVE the dress, from Williamsburg Bridal and Formal, but the alterations have been nerve-wracking!  I didn't even need much done!  I literally needed only the bustle and some embellishment added - no taking in or letting out, not even a hem!  At first, I was confident and things were going well.  I had it fitted and was told the bustle would be done and, if I wanted to, could just pick up the dress in the days before the wedding.  I wasn't too comfortable with that and ended up deciding that I wanted to change the embellishment some, so I met with the seamstress again.  The bustle was supposed to be finished, but it wasn't right - too long on one side and too short in another.  It was to be fixed and again I was told I could just pick it up right before.  That was NOT going to happen - so the next day it was "fixed" and I went to try it back on.  Same problems as the day before.  It was almost as if nothing was done!  We repinned and re-planned.  ...and then the seamstress went out of town (which is fine, of course her life doesn't revolve around me!)  She got back into town and is here for one day before she leaves again.  I am waiting to hear if we'll meet today to try it on before she leaves again.  We better.  It HAS to be right today!  I get married on SATURDAY!  My dress has to be right....

So...here we go!  It's wedding week!  

The Details...

We are officially 2 weeks from the wedding and I am feeling really good - I feel like I have most things done or planned.  This week I've been working on the stationary/printed items.  After we made the seating charts I started the place cards.  I printed them all on cardstock and then just had to cut them out - which required a paper cutter, corner rounder, and scissors.  Talk about TEDIOUS!  Our RSVP is at 165 - doing anything 165 times gets tedious!  I really like how they are turning out though so that's good.  One road bump in completing the place cards - we had no power when I was doing them so I had to stop when it got dark.  I was on a roll and haven't picked them up to finish since....!  

Yesterday I had our programs printed.  I decided to get them printed at Office Max because I needed them divided into thirds and didn't want to have to do it myself - the thirds is hard to get exact and I would have been too perfectionist about it.  Office Max was awesome - took 15 minutes and they were printed and cut.  BEST decision I could have made - so worth the money and avoided frustration.  Now, I just need to round the corners.  I really think rounding the corners makes them look more finished, so away I go - 1,440 corners.  I finished 960 yesterday.  Oh, and I have to bind them with a fastener - not sure how to do that so I will wait until Laura gets here and we'll figure it out together.  (Pics of both the placecards and the programs to come soon...)

Finally, I am nervous about receiving all of the items I've ordered.  I ordered our guest book on May 8th (7 weeks before our wedding).  The seller on Etsy, Envelope Guest Books, listed 2 weeks for production time.  A follow up email listed 4 - 6 weeks.  I still haven't received the guest book (June 15) and the seller now says it will be sent next week.  I hope I get it!  And I hope it's in good condition.  Reading the shop reviews, this is a trend.  LESSON LEARNED - read Etsy shop reviews!!!  (I always do on Ebay but haven't on Etsy...)  I am also waiting on the garter, but that wasn't ordered until June 1.

So I will be working some today and then off to the wedding of our good friends Matt and Emily!  CONGRATULATIONS to them!  I can't believe we're to this point - time has flown by!  Before I know it, people will be in town and we'll be days before, not weeks!

Seating Chart!

I have to admit, working on the seating chart was a part of wedding planning that I was dreading.  I've heard comments from relatives (who shall remain nameless...) at previous family weddings regarding seating, and James and I had already received requests for some people to NOT be seated by others.  So many moving parts and you want to be considerate to everyone.  I just thought this was going to be a complicated, tedious, terrible task.  It wasn't!  James and I tackled it tonight and finished in 30 - 40 minutes, at most.  James was awesome and helped - he even came up with our system.  Our tables are going to be round, so we used coffee filters as tables and I printed our guest list and cut the names apart to arrange on the "tables".  We laid the filters out in the table arrangement and away we went.  We started up front with family and moved out and back from there.  We could easily move the names from table to table and see what we had and where we had room.  Our biggest speed bump was seating numbers.  We can have 8 - 10 people per table and while trying to keep people with other guests they know, we ended up with some tables of 10 (max) and others of 6 (below "min")  Trying to balance and keep things coordinated was a bit challenging at times, but in the end we figured it our pretty easily and finished without major incident.  :-)  Here are some pics of the process:

Of course, we aren't going to keep 19 coffee filters on our floor for the next week, so I wrote out each table name and guests at the table in my master notebook.  I also added a column to the RSVP spreadsheet so all of the reception information is together.  Now to make all of the place cards...

DIY Frustration

I spent 4 - 5 hours tonight working on a DIY project for the wedding - it involved printing, cutting, and corner fancy-ing (not rounding but a more detailed design).  I printed on cardstock - which required feeding individually in the printer - time consuming but not a huge deal.  I printed at my friend Laura's so we chatted.  I got home and cut them all - and noticed that some were not exactly centered.  I decided, it's a small thing for the reception, looks good enough.  I then set out to fancy the corners.  I've used the tool before and it's actually tricky to get it perfectly in the corner - so this was the most frustrating part and a number of them weren't quite in the corner.  Some were thrown out, some were put in the "only if we run out" pile, and some were in the to-be-used pile.  I took the pile I had deemed acceptable to show James and ask about the corners, which weren't all perfect - his comment "what I really notice is that they aren't centered".  The man couldn't care less about half of the stuff I am doing, including if we use these, and he makes this comment.  So I get upset - having wasted my entire night working on them and being a bit frustrated by the corner tool - and throw them all away.  The cardstock wasn't too expensive so we didn't loose a ton of money but I literally wasted my entire Sunday night.  And I was excited about this little added touch that now I won't do.  I am not doing it all over again.  Of course I wanted them to look good but this whole time people have told me not to worry if everything isn't perfect, people won't notice/care.  The first time I go with that and leave something imperfect, I'm told it's not good enough.  Frustrating.

Bachelorette Party and DIYing

I am one lucky girl - 10 of the best girls I know got together in Charlottesville over the weekend to send me into married life in style.  My sister planned the event and did not leave out a single detail.  She booked rooms at the Omni - perfect location for walking to restaurants, stores, and bars at the walking mall - booked a limo bus for winery tour, and made reservations for dinner - Zocalo = delicious!  She had adorable favors for everyone and did it all from WI!  

Our winery tour started at Barboursville which was beautiful.  We did a tour and tasting here and our guide, Bill, was quite the history buff.  He told us about Thomas Jefferson (TJ), Mr. Barbour, Patrick Henry - the whole lot!  Here we wanted to know about wine but got a history lesson first.  It was amusing.  We tasted their wines - 19 of them! - and they were delicious.  Our second stop was at Horton Vineyard - a gorgeous outside view but the inside didn't go...the wines were good but the atmosphere and the staff weren't quite up to par with Barboursville.  Our final stop was at Keswick Winery where we got to do our tasting outdoors - the staff brought us our wines while we took in some sun.  The picture below was from outside Horton.

Coming back from dinner we made drinks, got ready for dinner, and I was spoiled with gifts!  We headed out to dinner at Zocalo...we were dressed for our night out and got a few looks as we headed to dinner at 6:30 - oh well!  Zocalo was DELICIOUS!  Moderately priced and a great atmosphere, it was an excellent pick.  I had the chicken and it came with a sauce that was so good.  

From there we went to Skybar where our bartender Mike was amazing - we kept giving him "I want something sweet and don't like...gin" and he'd come back with something delicious!  He was awesome!  He took great care of us.  From there we bar hopped a bit, I met a new grad ATC who I thought was the coolest, and danced the night away.  I paid for it the day after, but we had an amazing time - I'd recommend all of the places we went.  My girls spoiled me - but I'm ready to trade in the single life for marriage to my man...can't wait!

After we got home, and I slept a lot, Laura and I DIY'd some gifts and other things for the wedding and   we doubled checked all the things I've already gotten or have planned.  I think the details are coming together and the big day will be here before we know it!  I'm getting more ready for it - for awhile I was kind of scared/nervous for it.  All the planning and ideas, preconceived notions of how things will be and poof - all done so quickly.  It was also hard for me to actually picture myself in the day - but I'm getting there and see myself in that dress walking down the aisle!