Finding "The Dress"

I am not a "girly girl". I own exactly two dresses, and I usually wear jeans or jean shorts and a t-shirt or sweatshirt. And my t-shirts are all large (even though I am not a very large person). I absolutely refuse to wear skirts (hate them) or any low-cut tops (feel extremely uncomfortable in them and am constantly trying to pull them up, even when they're not supposed to go up any farther). My mom loves to tell the story that, for my Bat Mitzvah, she dragged me to literally EVERY store in the DC metro area (yes, we went all the way down to Tysons Corner, haha) looking for a dress I would wear and found...nothing. Finally, my aunt Lyz, who lives in NY, called my mom and said she found a dress that she thought I would like, and she would mail it down to us, and if I didn't like it, we could just mail it back. Well, that was the dress I ended up wearing! It was a dark red, crushed velvet, long sleeve, mid-calf-length dress (my Bat Mitzvah was in late December), very plain, and a "regular" (by which I mean like a t-shirt) neckline. I loved it!

So I knew that I should start wedding dress shopping early, because who knows how long it would take me to find something I actually liked! I started by browsing online, looking at known designers' websites (Alfred Angelo, David's Bridal, etc.). Pretty much everything I saw was either strapless (which I absolutely refuse to do, I would feel like it was falling down the whole time!) or very low-cut. I knew there HAD to be dresses out there that were made for people like me, who don't wear stuff like that, so I kept looking. I ended up browsing on The Knot, where I found one dress that looked promising. I clicked on the link to the designer's website, and discovered that it was a whole line of what they called "modest" dresses! They had a link on the website where you could find stores in your area that carry the line, so I did that. However, when I started going to the websites for the stores, I discovered that almost all of them had either closed or the website didn't exist! The only one that was still open was a place called The Yellow Rose. I looked through their website and liked what I saw, so I emailed Julia, the owner, to set up an appointment to go try on dresses.

I posted a facebook status asking who wanted to go dress shopping with me, and got a lot of responses initially. My sister even wanted to fly down from NY to go! (I talked her out of it though.) But gradually as the day got closer, people dropped out, and it ended up being just me and Shosh who went.

I wasn't sure what to expect. We went on a Saturday afternoon, and I was worried that it would be really busy, having read horror stories on The Knot from people who'd gone to David's Bridal and the like on weekends. But as it turned out, we were the only people there! It was just me, Shosh, and the owner (it's a VERY small shop). I tried on a total of 9 dresses, although only 8 of them made it out of the dressing room (one made me look pregnant, and I said NO WAY!). The fact that this store had 9 dresses (and I'm sure they had more than that even) that I was even willing to try on made me feel like I had made a good choice in looking there! Anyway, the last dress I tried on, I liked immediately. I thought it was a little too "poofy" in the skirt, but Shosh said they can take out some of the crinkly stuff that makes it poofy (I forget the name of it, haha). I ended up wearing the dress for about 20 minutes! I even walked over by the door so we could see what it looked like in natural light (since our wedding ceremony will be outside, weather permitting, I wanted to make sure I wasn't totally washed out, since it's a white dress).

I ended up texting a picture of me in the dress to my sister and my mom (well, actually to my dad so he could show it to my mom, my mom doesn't even know how to check her voicemail on her cell phone, let alone text!) and asked my mom what she thought, since she was paying for the dress. She said (typical buzzkill that she is) that she thought I should sleep on it before making a decision, and didn't I want to shop around more? I said HELL NO! I HATE shopping, especially the kind where I have to try stuff on, so if I found something on the first trip, WHY would I want to subject myself to MORE? She still wasn't convinced. Julia, the shop owner, said that she would give me the dress for $599, even though the list price was $668. My mom asked how long that offer was good :-P Julia said through Monday, so I told my mom I would sleep on it and we told Julia we would decide by Monday.

Of course, after I slept on it, I still wanted the dress! So my mom called Julia and paid for the dress over the phone, and I went and picked it up that Wednesday after work. It's now hanging in my closet until it comes time to go get it fitted! Julia also gave me the business card of a seamstress she works with often, who apparently used to work for David's Bridal, so she knows her way around wedding dresses.

My sister was PISSED that she didn't get to be there for the moment when I knew it was "The Dress". She made me promise that I would give her her own private dress-modeling session at some point, so I agreed to that. She did say that it looked good on me in the pictures, though!

The dress is a scoop neckline ball gown with silver and white beading on the neckline and waistline of the bodice and at the bottom of the train. It has "petal" sleeves, which are basically like cap sleeves. This is me in the dress:

Isn't it pretty??? :-)

The Venue Hunt - Part Two, or, My Mother is Still Insane

So we got back from our weekend trip all excited to have chosen our venue. We got back late Sunday night, and got up and went to work on Monday (March 15). Around 10 am, while I'm at work filing billing documents for one of the secretaries, my mom calls me. She says that she's thought more about the venue thing, and that she really thinks that now that we've gone to look at places together, she has a better understanding of what we're looking for in a venue. She thinks most of the places we looked at weren't really the kind of places we should have been looking at, so she wants us to go look at a few more places before we make a decision. At that point, I completely lost it. I'm a very routine-dependent person, and I had just spent the previous 22 hours or so getting comfortable in the mindset that we had made our decision and that our wedding would be on April 3 instead of April 10. Now she was telling me that she wanted to re-open that discussion (at least one of the new places she wanted us to look at was only available April 10, not April 3), and on as little sleep as I had gotten that weekend, I just couldn't deal with it. I called Marcus crying, and he suggested that we tell my mom that she should talk to him about wedding stuff for a while, because clearly I needed a break from her. So that's what we did.

Fast forward to the end of March. We went down to Florida for Marcus's cousin's wedding, then immediately from there up to Maryland for Passover. My mom had made us appointments while we were there to go look at 2 more potential venues, and then to re-visit the one we thought we had decided on the last time. While we were very impressed with the ceremony location at one of the new venues, we ultimately decided that it wasn't worth the price difference (it was significantly more expensive) and the inconvenience (it was actually in DC proper, which would have caused some issues with getting people to and from the location, rehearsal dinner, etc.), and stuck with our original choice. So our wedding date and venue were FINALLY set in stone!

At that point, Marcus emailed the rabbi at his family's synagogue. His family is very involved with their synagogue (his mom was actually the President of the synagogue at one point!), and my family doesn't even belong to their synagogue anymore now that my sister and I are both gone, so we had asked Marcus's rabbi if we could fly him up to Maryland to officiate at our wedding. He had agreed, as long as he was available on the date we chose. Luckily, he was indeed free on April 3, 2011, so our rabbi was officially booked!

When we got back home, we emailed Marcus's dad and Rochelle (Marcus's dad's wife). They own a printing company, and had offered to do all of our save-the-dates, invitations, thank you notes, etc. for free! While we were in Florida that weekend, we had visited their printing shop and looked at paper for the invitations and started designing our save-the-dates. Now that we had officially set our venue and date, we emailed back and forth with them for a few weeks putting the finishing touches on the save-the-dates.

Also during this time, we were getting our guest list together. We had my parents make a list of my family and their friends, his parents make a list of his family and their friends, and Marcus and I made a list of our friends. At my mom's suggestion, we started with a LONG list of everyone we would invite if we had no limit, and pruned it down from there. We both have large extended families, so my mom set a goal of getting the final attendance (not the guest list, but the number of people who actually come to the wedding) at no more than 200 people. My sister (who is my maid of honor) had the brilliant idea to use a Guest List spreadsheet template in Google Documents to keep our guest list, their addresses, numbers, RSVPs, gifts, etc. in one place where we could all access and edit it!

By the end of April, we had finalized our preliminary guest list and gotten our save-the-dates! We decided not to send them out until after May 14, because several of our friends were graduating from various programs and moving, so their new addresses wouldn't be valid until after that date. We had also already started getting engagement gifts! Now we have a growing pile of huge boxes (with gifts still in them) in the middle of our living room, because there is no storage space in our apartment, so we have nowhere else to put them! We've been very good about writing thank you notes as the gifts come in, which I'm hoping will keep us from having to write a whole bunch of them at once later on.

I'll try to post again later today to talk about my adventures in finding my dress, sending out our save-the-dates, and a few other details. Then we should be all caught up!

The Venue Hunt - Part One, or, My Mother is Insane

We decided to have our wedding in Maryland because my grandpa broke his hip last fall and he and my grandma both aren't really able to travel anymore. Once we had made that decision, my mom was in full planning mode (as usual)! She invited me and Marcus, as well as Marcus's mom and her wife, up for the weekend of March 12-14 to go look at potential venues and try to make a decision. We all did some research online and came up with a list of venues to go look at. Then, my mom sent us The Schedule:

Tentative Agenda for Weekend of March 12-14, 2010

Thursday, March 11 2010

8:29 PM – Pick up Nancy and Lettie at BWI.

Friday, March 12, 2010

Visit restaurants for Rehearsal Dinner:

Café Mileto, Germantown, MD
Venue is available Saturday, April 9, 2011. This is Tara’s first choice. We eat dinner there often, and I had Eliot’s 50th birthday dinner there and catered his 45th birthday part from there. Manager is available to meet with us any time on March 12, 2010. Call before we go.

Tragara Ristorante, Bethesda, MD
Venue is available Saturday, April 9, 2011. This restaurant is the fanciest and most expensive of the three. They have a separate party room. Manager is available to meet with us any time. I’m supposed to call a few days in advance to set up a time on Friday, March 12, 2010.

That’s Amore, Rockville, MD
They’re “soft holding” the venue for us for Saturday, April 9, 2011. They have a separate party room. I’ve been to a Bat Mitzvah and a retirement party there, and they do a very nice job. I spoke with Max. We’re supposed to go there between 2-6 PM on Friday, March 12, 2010 and ask for Max. If he’s not there, either Jenny or
Celeste can help us.

10:40 PM – Pick up Tara and Marcus at BWI.

Saturday, March 13, 2010

10:00 AM – Ceresville Mansion, Frederick, MD
Venue is not available the afternoon of Sunday, April 10, 2011. It is available that evening, and it is available the afternoon of Sunday, April 3, 2011. They can do an outdoor ceremony and indoor sit down dinner for 200 guests. We will be attending an Open House, which runs from 10-2. I spoke with Allison. They will not do even a soft hold of the date without a deposit. Someone at work told me that they’ve been to a wedding there and that you can hear the cars passing on the road during an outdoor ceremony.

11:30 AM – 1:00 PM – Antrim 1844, Taneytown, MD
Venue is available the weekend of April 9-10, 2011. It is an estate with 42 guest rooms spread out in different buildings on the estate. They have many locations on the estate for an outdoor ceremony and can do a sit down dinner in a single room, both for 200 guests. (There are additional hotels available in nearby Gettysburg, PA and Frederick, MD.) Rehearsal dinner could be held there, as well. Another option would be to just have the wedding there and use hotels and have the rehearsal dinner closer to home. This venue is about an hour from our house. I spoke with Mike. They have a soft hold on the date for us.

We’ll have to grab a quick lunch en route.

2:00 PM – JW Marriott, Gaithersburg, MD
Venue is available Sunday afternoon, April 10, 2011, but they cannot accommodate an outdoor ceremony with 200 guests. They can do indoor ceremony and outdoor cocktail hour for 200 guests. In addition to the wedding date, they are currently holding hotel rooms for us: Friday night–5, Saturday night-25, Sunday night-25. I spoke with Barbara. They have a soft hold on the date for us.

5:00 PM – Inn at Brookeville Farms, Brookeville, MD
Venue is available Sunday afternoon, April 10, 2011. They can accommodate an outdoor ceremony and indoor sit down dinner for 200 guests. They have a soft hold on the date for us.

Dinner, relax, debrief.


Sunday, March 14, 2010

10:00 AM – Bolger Center, Potomac, MD
Venue is not available Sunday, April 10, 2011. It is available Sunday, April 3, 2011. They can accommodate an outdoor ceremony and indoor sit down dinner for 200 guests. They have hotel rooms available on site.

3:41 PM – Nancy and Lettie fly out of BWI.

7:29 PM – Tara and Marcus fly out of Dulles.

As you can tell, the date we originally wanted was April 10, 2011. Unfortunately, the venue we ultimately ended up choosing wasn't available that date, so we had to push it back. It turned out for the best though, because apparently April 3 is better for most of our wedding party than April 10! Also, there were addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, last names, and flight numbers that I've removed to make The Schedule blog-appropriate!

When I showed The Schedule to people at work, they finally believed me that my mom was crazy! We all had a good laugh over the "dinner, relax, debrief" part, and I have one friend who still jokingly reminds me all the time to "relax and debrief"!

That weekend was just as crazy as it sounds! It was pouring down rain all day Saturday, and Lettie (Marcus's mom's wife) had fallen and sprained her wrist and ankle on Friday, so going to look at 4 venues was quite the challenge. We made it through, but we didn't really like any of the venues we had seen. When we went to the Bolger Center on Sunday, we fell in love with it! Marcus and I talked about it, and we wanted to sign a contract with the Bolger Center right away, but my mom wanted us to sleep on it first. When we left Sunday evening, I thought that we had definitely decided on the Bolger Center, and I was so excited to move on to the next stage of planning!

Our Engagement

We got engaged on February 13, 2010. Here's how it happened!

My parents came down to visit for the long weekend (Presidents Day). Marcus and I had gone ring shopping together back in January, so I knew he had the ring and that he was going to propose sometime soon. I actually thought he was going to do it the following weekend, because he was planning our monthly date night for our "monthiversary" then. Anyway, my parents came into town on Friday, February 12. I was still at work when they got in, but it was snowing, so Marcus was home because his office had closed for the day. They had brought down a new (FREE!) tv for us, so Marcus and my dad were lugging it up from the car to our apartment. For some reason, Marcus chose that moment to tell my parents that he was planning to propose to me that weekend and ask for their blessing (so to speak), and my dad almost dropped the huge tv! Luckily he recovered in time...crisis averted!

I got home from work, and we headed out to visit our friends Joel and Shosh so that my parents (especially my mom) could meet their son Eli, who was 5 months old at the time. We stayed there for a while and then went to P.F. Chang's for dinner. After dinner, we talked about going back to our apartment to play games, but we were all pretty tired, so we decided not to. Much to Marcus's chagrin, as he had apparently been planning to propose that night, but his plan was thwarted, so he had to wait one more day!

Saturday we had another fun day, and that night we ended up at Everybody's for dinner. Again we talked about going back to our apartment to play games, and I tried to get out of it because I was tired, but they talked me into it this time. We decided to play Cranium and chose teams: me and Marcus on one team, my parents on the other. After playing a few rounds, it was Marcus's turn. He picked a "charades" card, flashed me the "I love you" sign, then got down on his knee and pulled the ring out of his pocket! At first I wasn't sure if he was really proposing or if he was actually acting out what was on the card, so the first words out of my mouth were, "are you serious?" He assured me that he was, in fact, serious, and I quickly said "yes" and he put the ring on my finger and we hugged for about 2 minutes. Then I got hugs from my parents, and we broke out the camera.

After a few pictures, it was time to start the slew of phone calls! I tried to call my sister while Marcus tried to call his parents, but neither of us got through to any of them! We left messages for them to call us back, and then moved on to calling our grandparents. I called my one grandma first, but had to leave a message there too. Then I called my other grandparents and FINALLY got through to someone! Thus it was that the first people to find out we were engaged (aside from my parents, obviously) were my grandma and Marcus's grandfather. After we had talked to the grandparents, we decided that since it was so late at night, we would save the rest of the phone calls for the next day. My sister called me back later that night and I got to tell her the news (she FREAKED OUT and squealed in my ear!) and ask her officially to be my maid of honor. She was SO excited!

The next day, my parents came to pick us up to go to brunch with Marcus's aunt at the restaurant where Marcus and I were first officially introduced. On the way there and back, my mom made me call ALL of my aunts to tell them the news. I asked her why I had to call them all and she couldn't just tell them, and she said it was because when she got engaged, her mother made her call her aunts and uncles. I said, "oh, so I guess that's not one of the ways you swore you'd never be like your mother, huh?", and she made a face at me and told me just to call them. So by the middle of the day on Sunday (which happened to be Valentine's Day), pretty much everyone knew, and we were able to post it on facebook and officially announce our newly engaged status to the world!

That afternoon, my mom dragged us to every store in Atlanta to start on creating our registries! Yes, we started two registries before we had been engaged for 24 hours. Yes, my mom is crazy. We only put a few things on our registries that day, but I was so overwhelmed by that point that I was running on auto-pilot. I reached my shopping breaking point (which is usually about 2 hours, less if it's in the mall, which this was) in barely over an hour, and luckily we were able to convince my mom that we needed to be done for the day before I had a total breakdown! We went out for a nice dinner, over which we discussed the beginning stages of planning the wedding, and then went back to my parents' hotel for a bit before saying our goodbyes (they left early the next morning) and heading home to go to sleep.

It was a crazy, whirlwind weekend, which was definitely a sign of what lay ahead for us in this planning process. With my mom at the helm (since we are planning from a distance and she is actually there), we knew it would be a fast and stressful, but hopefully fun ride!

What We've Done So Far

These are the planning items we have completed so far! I'll try to post recap entries about each of them if I can.

• Booked a venue (we are having our ceremony and reception at the same place, and catering is also included)
• Bought my dress!
• Ordered my shoes
• Set the wedding party
• Chose color scheme, and chose dress color for bridesmaids
• Booked our videographer
• Narrowed down choices for our photographer, DJ, florist, ceremony musicians, and day-of-coordinator
• Booked our officiant
• Designed, ordered, and sent out our save-the-dates!
• Created our registries

Also, my parents have planned an engagement party for us, so we will be heading up to MD for that in a couple of weeks!

Introductions

Before I launch into the planning process, here is a brief introduction to who we are!

I'm Tara. I'm 26 years old, originally from Maryland (DC area). My fiance is Marcus. He's 25 years old, originally from South Florida (near Ft. Lauderdale). We currently live in an awesome 1-bedroom apartment in Atlanta, GA. We got engaged on February 13, 2010, and will be getting married on April 3, 2011 in Potomac, MD. Our joint nickname, Tarcus, was coined by our good friends Joel and Shosh, aka Joshanah.

I work at a law firm as a records clerk. It's boring most of the time, but it pays the rent (barely). Marcus works in fundraising and development for a non-profit organization. He loves his job! When we're not at work, we enjoy hanging out with friends, watching Atlanta Braves baseball and Maryland Terrapins men's college basketball, watching a wide range of tv shows and movies, and playing games (board games, card games, you name it, we love it!). We both love dogs and hope to have at least one of our own someday.

So now that you know a little bit about us, time to get caught up on the wedding planning! Stay tuned!

My First Post!

I guess I'm starting this a little late in the game, since we've already done a fair amount of planning, but I wanted to have a place where I could share my excitement and accomplishments (and also, inevitably, frustrations and disappointments) along the way. Stay tuned for more posts today that will hopefully bring us up to date on the planning process so far!