Another Whirlwind Weekend

Most of the stuff I have to mention happened this weekend, but I'll start with something we did the weekend before - ring shopping!

We went back to Jared, where we got my engagement ring, to look at wedding bands. We ended up finding exactly what we wanted, so we went ahead and got them! They are very simple bands - plain, solid white gold - and pretty thin (since I have small fingers, lol, and also because the thicker one looked weird with my engagement ring, since it also has a thin band). Marcus also decided he liked a thinner band as opposed to a thicker one, so our rings are just one size (thickness) apart! But several finger sizes apart ;-)

So, on to this weekend. We flew down to Florida late Thursday night, and pretty much went to bed as soon as we got in, since it was almost 1 am. Friday we slept in a little, then got up and headed over to Marcus's dad's printing shop to try to finalize our invitations! After much discussion, we decided to change a few things - the color of the ink and backing paper (because the paper we had chosen wasn't the greatest quality, although it matched our color perfectly), and the type of paper the actual invitation will be on. We also fixed a few wording things and figured out the design for the RSVP cards and hotel information cards. I called my mom to let her know, and she started getting all up in arms over the envelopes, and how we needed to have outer and inner envelopes instead of just the one envelope. I said that I didn't think we needed two envelopes, it seems like such a waste, since people just throw out the envelopes anyway. I reminded my mom (as she told me to when we began the wedding planning process) that this is MY wedding, and so what I want should matter. She got all huffy and proclaimed that while it is my wedding, she is paying for it, and she "is the one inviting all the people", so she would like the invitations to be "appropriate". My response to that was, "I assure you, the invitations will be APPROPRIATE, whether we have one envelope or two!" We got off the phone, and Marcus's dad said that for the size envelope we are using, it's very hard to get inner envelopes, so he thought we just needed the one. Later, though, he and my mom emailed back and forth and he agreed to look for the inner envelopes :-P

We went to lunch with Marcus's dad and Rochelle, then headed back to his mom's house, where we hung out for a while, then got ready and headed out to the temple for Friday night services, followed by dinner. We came back and went to sleep.

Saturday morning, we got up early and headed back to the temple for the morning service (it was Marcus's stepbrother's Bar Mitzvah, the real reason for our trip down there). There was a nice luncheon afterwards, and then we headed back to Marcus's mom's house again for a few hours. During those few hours, I responded to about 12 emails from my mom (who I was about ready to kill at this point) about cocktail napkins and other things that I care equally little about. We did get some stuff done - picked out our cake topper, and semi-finalized our guest list spreadsheet (we changed all the names to how they will look on the envelopes - but if we do end up having an inner envelope, we will have to add another column for the names as they will appear on THAT envelope), as well as looking at designs for cocktail napkins, kippot and bathroom towels.

Saturday night, we headed back to the temple again for the Bar Mitzvah party. It went late into the night, and was a lot of fun, though we were exhausted by the end!

Sunday morning, we got up and headed back to the temple yet AGAIN for our Engagement Party #3! It was a brunch party, and it was really nice, with lots of yummy food. My parents and sister were originally going to come down for this weekend too, but they ended up not coming, as my dad has been having some health issues and was told he is not supposed to fly. So it turned out that my great-aunt (who lives about 30 minutes away from Marcus's family in Florida) was the only member of my family in attendance, and the rest was Marcus's family. I was a little worried that they (my great-aunt and her husband) wouldn't enjoy it, since they didn't really know anybody, but we introduced them around, and my sister told me last night that my great-aunt had called my mom to let her know that they had a great time! We also got a bunch more gifts, and luckily, Marcus's aunt Rebeca, who lives in Atlanta and had driven down (she's staying for the rest of the week), offered to drive them back up to Atlanta for us and store them at her house.

We flew back to Atlanta last night and got home around 10:30 pm. It was a crazy whirlwind of a weekend, but at least we got some stuff done! I was hoping to come out of this weekend with the invitations completely finalized, which didn't happen. However, Marcus's dad told us that while he can't start printing them until we have EVERYTHING finalized (including the spreadsheets), once he starts printing, they will only take about a week to be ready, and a few more days to get to us through the mail. Since we're aiming to send them out in mid-to-late January, we actually still have plenty of time to finalize them. And since they are also pre-printing our envelopes, we can start mailing them out as soon as we get them, without having to worry about addressing them first.

Engagement Party #2, and a few more checks

My parents came into town this weekend for our Atlanta engagement party, which I'll get into in a few minutes. Naturally, since they were here, we got a few more wedding planning things done, too.

My parents arrived on Friday night. We picked them up at the airport, then they went to their hotel and we all went to bed. Saturday morning, we got up bright and early and headed out around 10 am. First we went to Men's Wearhouse, where we figured out tuxes for the groomsmen and Marcus got fitted for his tux. The groomsmen are going to have blue (matching the bridesmaids' dress color) vests and ties, and Marcus will have a white vest and black tie.

Next we headed out to shop for veils. I had already found one that I really liked online (on Etsy, which is an amazing website - if you've never seen it, check it out!), but my mom insisted that I needed to go try on a few veils in person first so that I knew what I wanted. The first place we went was Bridals by Lori, which had been recommended by several people on the Atlanta boards on The Knot. Apparently this store is featured on Say Yes to the Dress, so it was fairly busy, but we were able to get good service. The store was ridiculously huge (THREE floors!), but we found our way to the veils department, and started looking around ourselves. Eventually, a salesperson noticed us and sent one of the managers over to help us. I tried on a couple of veils, and my mom quickly realized that I already knew what I wanted. The veil I liked at this store would have cost about $250, and the one I found on Etsy costs about $40...so my mom agreed that getting it online was the way to go!

We stopped for a nice lunch, then decided that we didn't really need to go to the second bridal shop we had planned on, since we had already pretty much figured out the veil thing. So instead, we went back to our apartment, where we spent several hours working on some smaller wedding items, including programs, reception music checklist for the DJ, a photo list for the photographer, and the guest list for my bridal shower. Then Marcus and I got changed, and we headed to the hotel so my parents could change for the party.

The engagement party was at Marcus's aunt and uncle's house, and it was for Marcus's GA family - the Atlanta and Savannah contingents. I had met most of them before, but not all, so it was fun to meet some more of his Savannah family! And my parents were meeting most of them for the first time, so that was fun too. His family and my family are so similar, it's a little scary! They're both loud, fun, and CRAZY! Our wedding reception is going to be insane (in a good way!)! Anyway, we ate lots of yummy food, talked a lot, and opened more gifts - including our food processor, which I am SO excited about! It was a great party, Marcus's aunts (the planning committee) did a great job! So, two engagement parties down, one to go (which will be in Florida in December, for Marcus's FL family).

On Sunday, we went to an early brunch with my parents, Marcus's aunt, and one of our friends. Then we came back to the apartment and hung out watching a couple of Marcus's home videos before taking my parents to the airport for their flight home. It was a good visit, both productive and fun/relaxing (for once).

Another thing I've been working on lately - my bridal shower! My crazy Aunt Jenny finally emailed me to start planning it. Right now we're looking at Presidents Day weekend, and this will be a traditional "girls only" shower. I emailed her a preliminary guest list complete with addresses, so we'll see how the planning goes. I'm a little scared, honestly, my aunts are nuts, so I'm kind of expecting anything and everything at this shower, haha. It should be fun, though, so I'm excited.

Next on the wedding planning docket: Thanksgiving weekend! We will be traveling up to Maryland for Thanksgiving, and have several big things on the agenda, including our (hopefully) final menu tasting, which should allow us to finalize and order our invitations! Stay tuned!

Ketubah! (and other things)

We have another big check - Marcus and I have picked out and ordered our ketubah! For those who don't know, a ketubah is the Jewish marriage contract, and it's also a work of art. Each one is individually hand-made by the artist. Our ketubah is called "Serenity in Nature: Two Trees" and the artist is Risa Aqua. You can get an idea of what it will look like here.

In other news, I have started working on my bridesmaids' gifts. You may remember that I ordered the actual gifts a while back, but now I am working on the other part (which I can't go into detail about, because it's still a surprise!).

We have two more engagement parties coming up! One on November 13 at Marcus's aunt and uncle's house here in Atlanta, and one on December 19 in Florida (purposely planned for the day after Marcus's stepbrother Jon's Bar Mitzvah, so that his out of town family will already be there). After some debate, we decided to call them all engagement parties rather than showers so that people who are not necessarily invited to the wedding can come celebrate with us at the parties without then feeling snubbed when they don't get an invitation to the actual wedding.

We have also finalized the Rabbi's travel plans, and booked his tickets. And we've been ironing out the little details of a whole bunch of stuff, including RSVP card design for our invitations, ceremony music, stamps for our invitations, and my parents' travel plans for the upcoming engagement party in November.

Another big thing that happened since I last posted is that my mom decided to switch to a different coordinator person for our venue. The person we had been working with kept screwing things up (like the food options we had at our tasting), and wasn't very good at responding quickly to communication, so my mom decided enough was enough and finally switched. She says that the new person seems much more communicative and organized, but we'll really find out when we go to our second tasting over Thanksgiving.

We're still kind of in a lull as far as planning that needs to be done right now. It will be picking up again in earnest starting around Thanksgiving! But for now, we're enjoying the break!

A Crazy Weekend, and Another Letdown

This past weekend, we traveled up to Maryland for our engagement party. My parents have been planning this thing for months! We flew up Friday night and pretty much went straight to bed. Saturday, we got up around 10 and ate a nice brunch (bagels and lox, YUM!). Then we helped my parents get the house set up for the party. At 2 pm, we met with one of the DJs that we were considering. He was kind of awkward at first, but I grew to like him more as the meeting went on. He left around 3, and we went upstairs and showered and got ready for the party, which started at 4.

The party was AWESOME! We ended up having about 75 people, and my parents' house was filled to the brim! They had tables set up in the living room, dining room, basement, and out on the back porch. My mom had prepared all the food herself, but she hired people to come in and man the grill, bartend, and actually cook the food (throw it in the oven, and serve it). It was delicious, of course. It was really cool that both of Marcus's parents, his grandfather (who is 95 years old), and all of his siblings and step-siblings were able to come up for the party! They got to meet a good chunk of my extended family, which went really well, and was very interesting to watch. I said beforehand that I thought the party was a good litmus test for the wedding in that way - just throw everyone in a room and see how they react to each other. Like I said, it went really well, so I consider it a success!

The one bad thing about the party, for me, was that while it was really nice to see everyone, I didn't feel like I really got to SEE anyone. Every time I tried to start having a conversation with someone, my mom would call me over to say hello to someone who had just arrived, or say goodbye to someone who was leaving. I literally ran back and forth between the door and wherever I was hanging out at the time the whole party.

The party was supposed to end at 9, but of course, we convinced a few people to hang around, and they got me and Marcus to open our presents! We got a lot of great stuff, and it was nice to have that extra time where we actually got to interact with some of our party guests. Everyone filtered out by around 10:30, and we were exhausted, so we went to bed.

Sunday morning, we got up early to go meet Marcus's dad & co. for breakfast. It was actually a very nice breakfast, and they said that they really enjoyed the party, and meeting my family! After breakfast, we went back to my parents' house, and at 11, we met with another potential DJ. He was much more outgoing and confident than the first one, but I had some concerns about his bragging and some of the comments he made, which were sort of culturally insensitive (not intentionally so, but still) and came off the wrong way. When he left, we still didn't have a decision about a DJ. Then at 12, we met with a photographer. We LOVED her (like my mom thought we would), so that was one check mark off the list. After she left, we talked for a little while about the DJs, and my mom said we could think on it and let her know in a couple of days. We flew back home Sunday evening.

We eventually decided to go with the second DJ, Chris Laich. We think that he will do a good job, and as for the personality stuff, at least I won't be the one dealing with him for the most part, and my mom really likes him, so she won't mind. One more check off the list!

Then, this morning, my mom called me. She said that things didn't work out with the photographer, apparently the contract she made up was not acceptable and she wasn't willing to negotiate. So now we have to find another photographer, and find some potential ones to meet with when we go back up to Maryland for 4th of July. A trip can never be just a trip anymore! Oh well.

That's My Final Answer

I haven't been doing much wedding-related stuff lately, mostly on account of general life craziness. We have had a steady stream of gifts arriving at our door, and now have a growing pile of boxes in the middle of our living room, because there is no storage space in our apartment! We're going up to Maryland for July 4th weekend, so we're hoping to take at least some if not all of this stuff up then to store at my parents' house temporarily.

Today I did my first wedding errand in a few weeks: I went to David's Bridal with Pearl (one of my awesome bridesmaids). My mom had gone to David's Bridal in Maryland with Cara (another bridesmaid) and her mom a couple of weeks ago, and called me telling me that I needed to go to David's Bridal and look at the color I had chosen for the bridesmaids' dresses, because it looked COMPLETELY different in person than it did on the website. Also, a couple of my bridesmaids had asked if I could get color swatches for them so they could search for dresses elsewhere, since DB is kind of expensive. So Pearl and I went, and had great success! First of all, the color looked EXACTLY the same in person as it did on the website, so I don't know what my mom was talking about. So Horizon blue is now my FINAL decision for bridesmaids dress color! I also picked up a couple of swatches (at $1 each, and they are big enough to cut into several pieces, so I only had to buy two of them), so that is taken care of.

This weekend we are going up to Maryland for our engagement party, and I will have lots of updates when we get back! In addition to the party itself (which will be ridiculous, my parents are really going all out for this!), we are also meeting with several potential photographers and DJs, so hopefully we will make a decision by the end of the weekend! My mom also called me today to let me know that they are signing the contract for the florist today, and she has also pretty much decided on a day-of coordinator to hire. The pieces are starting to fall into place!