Our planning has kind of stagnated recently, and now that we're officially in 2011, I'm really feeling the pressure to get stuff done! We have gotten a few things done though...
1. Favors and cake topper - we ordered these a few weeks ago, and they have both arrived to my parents' house! My mom says the favors came out GREAT!
2. Dress fitting - I went to my first dress fitting on Saturday. On recommendations from people on The Knot, I went to Dora Baker, who runs a bridal dress alterations business out of her home here in Atlanta. She was very nice and helpful. She has to let my dress out a bit at the waist so that it will fall correctly before she can see what else needs to be done. I go back on January 20th to get the rest done (hem and bustle), and my dress should be ready for pickup on January 27th!
3. Bridesmaids dresses - ALL of my bridesmaids have finally ordered their dresses! This is a huge sigh of relief for me, since I had been really stressing about it. But it looks like they will all come in with a couple of weeks to spare before the wedding :)
4. Photo montage - Marcus and I went through a whole bunch of photos and finally narrowed down to 100 the ones we want in our photo montage (which will be shown at the rehearsal dinner). We will be mailing them to the videographer this week!
5. Maid of honor gift - I had already bought gifts for my bridesmaids a while back, but I FINALLY came up with a good idea for my maid of honor. I purchased her gift last week, and it should arrive sometime this week.
6. Invitations - this is an ongoing saga :-P My mom keeps changing her mind about things, and I was ready to kill her at one point last week. But we are OH SO CLOSE to finally being done with the invitations! We just have to send all of our spreadsheets to Marcus's dad (once they are completely finalized) and then they will begin printing! I really hope we get them out by the end of the month...
7. Marriage license - Montgomery County, Maryland (where we'll be getting married) is AWESOME, because their marriage license process is SO simple! We had to call their office to request a "non-resident marriage license application", which they promptly mailed to us. We have filled it out, and just need to sign it in front of a notary public. We were going to do that today, but everything is closed due to the snow, so we'll try again tomorrow. Once we sign it, we just have to mail it back along with the $55 fee, and we'll be all set!
So my to-do list is slowly but surely shrinking. Once we're done with the invitations, I'll feel a lot better. I think that's really the last BIG thing. After that, it's all details.
Monday, January 10, 2011
Monday, December 20, 2010
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.
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.
Monday, November 29, 2010
Food, glorious food!
This weekend, we traveled up to Maryland for Thanksgiving and got a bunch of wedding stuff done! On Friday morning, I went to do my trial hair styling. We tried a few different things, and we decided to go with a very simple, but pretty, style. My hair will be blown dry straight, and will be part up and part down (just a top layer up, and the rest down). I LOVE my hair straight, so I'm excited!
Later, on Friday afternoon, we went to the Bolger Center to do our final menu tasting. You may remember I wrote earlier about how they screwed up our first tasting, and we didn't get to taste everything we wanted to, so we had to schedule this second tasting. Since then, my mom got fed up with our contact person's lack of communication, and switched to a new contact person, Debbie. We met Debbie for the first time when we arrived at this tasting. She's a bit dryer and more abrupt than our old contact person, but she seems much more together, and according to my mom, she's a much better communicator. We tasted a few more delicious dishes, and made our final menu choices! We will be offering three entrees: filet mignon, sea bass (which is absolutely amazing), and butternut squash ravioli (vegetarian entree, which in MY opinion was even BETTER than the sea bass! I was initially going to get the fish entree, but now I think I am going to get the ravioli! I don't even like squash, and I loved it, so that should tell you something about how good it is!). There's also a yummy field greens salad, and our appetizers will be coconut chicken, crab cakes (hey, it's in Maryland, this is a requirement! lol), lamb skewers, and a really delicious brie & cranberry pocket thingy. Everything is really tasty, and I am very excited about that!
At Thanksgiving dinner with my family on Thursday, we also firmed up plans with my aunt for my bridal shower, which will be in Maryland the Sunday of Presidents Day weekend in February. We were originally going to do it on Saturday, but my cousin has a poms competition that day, so instead, everyone will come into town for the weekend, we'll all go to her competition on Saturday, and the shower on Sunday! It's going to be a traditional "all-girls" shower, so that should be interesting.
I also got my veil this morning! When we got back last night, there was a package slip in our mailbox, so I went to the leasing office and picked up TWO packages - one was a bunch of books my mom got me for my birthday/Hanukkah, and the other was my veil! It's exactly what I expected, very simple and pretty, and a perfect length! I haven't tried it on with my dress yet, but that's what fittings are for, right? As I mentioned in my last post (I think...), I ordered my veil from Etsy, and I couldn't be happier with that choice. The same veil in a store cost about $250, and I got it for under $50! I highly recommend Etsy, and especially "simplebeautyveils", the seller I bought the veil from.
That's about all for now. Next big step is invitations - I will be working on that this week, and hopefully we'll have our final order in in the next couple of weeks! We're sending out the invitations in January, so I'm starting to get excited about that.
Later, on Friday afternoon, we went to the Bolger Center to do our final menu tasting. You may remember I wrote earlier about how they screwed up our first tasting, and we didn't get to taste everything we wanted to, so we had to schedule this second tasting. Since then, my mom got fed up with our contact person's lack of communication, and switched to a new contact person, Debbie. We met Debbie for the first time when we arrived at this tasting. She's a bit dryer and more abrupt than our old contact person, but she seems much more together, and according to my mom, she's a much better communicator. We tasted a few more delicious dishes, and made our final menu choices! We will be offering three entrees: filet mignon, sea bass (which is absolutely amazing), and butternut squash ravioli (vegetarian entree, which in MY opinion was even BETTER than the sea bass! I was initially going to get the fish entree, but now I think I am going to get the ravioli! I don't even like squash, and I loved it, so that should tell you something about how good it is!). There's also a yummy field greens salad, and our appetizers will be coconut chicken, crab cakes (hey, it's in Maryland, this is a requirement! lol), lamb skewers, and a really delicious brie & cranberry pocket thingy. Everything is really tasty, and I am very excited about that!
At Thanksgiving dinner with my family on Thursday, we also firmed up plans with my aunt for my bridal shower, which will be in Maryland the Sunday of Presidents Day weekend in February. We were originally going to do it on Saturday, but my cousin has a poms competition that day, so instead, everyone will come into town for the weekend, we'll all go to her competition on Saturday, and the shower on Sunday! It's going to be a traditional "all-girls" shower, so that should be interesting.
I also got my veil this morning! When we got back last night, there was a package slip in our mailbox, so I went to the leasing office and picked up TWO packages - one was a bunch of books my mom got me for my birthday/Hanukkah, and the other was my veil! It's exactly what I expected, very simple and pretty, and a perfect length! I haven't tried it on with my dress yet, but that's what fittings are for, right? As I mentioned in my last post (I think...), I ordered my veil from Etsy, and I couldn't be happier with that choice. The same veil in a store cost about $250, and I got it for under $50! I highly recommend Etsy, and especially "simplebeautyveils", the seller I bought the veil from.
That's about all for now. Next big step is invitations - I will be working on that this week, and hopefully we'll have our final order in in the next couple of weeks! We're sending out the invitations in January, so I'm starting to get excited about that.
Monday, November 15, 2010
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!
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!
Thursday, October 28, 2010
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!
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!
Monday, October 4, 2010
Food (and other things)
It's been a while since I've posted anything. Wedding planning has slowed down considerably, but it's starting to pick up again. A few items of note have happened since my last post.
Three weekends ago, we went to Florida for Marcus's grandfather's birthday. While we were there, we met with the rabbi and firmed up plans for the ceremony, as well as his meal and travel plans. He also directed us to a great website for finding a ketubah, which we have looked through and narrowed down a list of ones we like.
This weekend, we went to Maryland to do our menu tasting! We were very excited, and the food itself did not disappoint! However, our coordinator person had went off the wrong email (an earlier list rather than the final one), so we didn't get to taste all of the things we had selected, but we did get to taste some that we hadn't selected. Everything was good, but we will be going back again when we're up there for Thanksgiving to taste the remaining items we had wanted to taste. It seems like nothing we do for this wedding can go right the first time! *Sigh*.
We also had a little pow-wow with Frieda (one of the Schwartzes, who I've mentioned before) to talk about music for the ceremony. After much discussion, we have decided to enlist her help in finding musicians to play at our ceremony. She used to play in a klezmer band, so she knows a lot of appropriate people in the local music world. We also narrowed down a list of songs that we want played before and during the ceremony, and further discussed the actual procession and the order in which people will walk down the aisle.
Also, we finally got our engagement photos back! They are on the photographer's website - we are in the process of finding out if the photographer will let us have the jpegs (for facebook posting/easier sharing), but for now, if you haven't seen the pictures and you want to, let me or Marcus know, and we can send you a link and login info for the website! The pictures came out GREAT!
We have also pretty much finalized the wording and colors for our invitations. Now we just have to wait until we finalize our menu so we can add the meal options to the response cards. That will all be happening very quickly, as we won't know our menu until after Thanksgiving, and we hope to order our invitations by the first week of December (and plan to send them out in late January)! Such is life...everything comes in bunches!
Three weekends ago, we went to Florida for Marcus's grandfather's birthday. While we were there, we met with the rabbi and firmed up plans for the ceremony, as well as his meal and travel plans. He also directed us to a great website for finding a ketubah, which we have looked through and narrowed down a list of ones we like.
This weekend, we went to Maryland to do our menu tasting! We were very excited, and the food itself did not disappoint! However, our coordinator person had went off the wrong email (an earlier list rather than the final one), so we didn't get to taste all of the things we had selected, but we did get to taste some that we hadn't selected. Everything was good, but we will be going back again when we're up there for Thanksgiving to taste the remaining items we had wanted to taste. It seems like nothing we do for this wedding can go right the first time! *Sigh*.
We also had a little pow-wow with Frieda (one of the Schwartzes, who I've mentioned before) to talk about music for the ceremony. After much discussion, we have decided to enlist her help in finding musicians to play at our ceremony. She used to play in a klezmer band, so she knows a lot of appropriate people in the local music world. We also narrowed down a list of songs that we want played before and during the ceremony, and further discussed the actual procession and the order in which people will walk down the aisle.
Also, we finally got our engagement photos back! They are on the photographer's website - we are in the process of finding out if the photographer will let us have the jpegs (for facebook posting/easier sharing), but for now, if you haven't seen the pictures and you want to, let me or Marcus know, and we can send you a link and login info for the website! The pictures came out GREAT!
We have also pretty much finalized the wording and colors for our invitations. Now we just have to wait until we finalize our menu so we can add the meal options to the response cards. That will all be happening very quickly, as we won't know our menu until after Thanksgiving, and we hope to order our invitations by the first week of December (and plan to send them out in late January)! Such is life...everything comes in bunches!
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Another Jam-Packed Weekend
After a brief hiatus from wedding planning, we jumped right back into the thick of it this weekend! Thanks to Labor Day, we were able to make a long weekend trip up to Maryland, which of course was packed with wedding planning activities.
We flew up Friday evening and got to my parents' house around 9:30 pm, which was really nice, because we usually take a much later flight and don't get there until more like midnight! We settled in and watched a movie with my parents, then went to bed at a decent hour.
Saturday was our busiest day. We got up around 9 am, and headed out to our first cake-tasting appointment at 10. I don't like cake, so I was pretty much expecting Marcus to take the lead on this one, but I actually ended up tasting most of the flavors too. We walked around the room for a while, looking at some cake displays, while the lady prepared our tasting samples. This place's specialty is their raspberry cake (which was really good, by the way!), but we also tasted a variety of other flavors, including pina colada, key lime, almond, and chocolate chocolate chip. We quickly discovered that we liked the fruity flavors best. We also tried several fillings (pineapple, strawberry, and raspberry), but decided that since we liked the fruity cakes, a filling would make it TOO fruity and too sweet.
We got finished there earlier than we expected, so we called the next place we were going to ask if we could come earlier. We were originally supposed to go there at 12, but ended up getting there around 11:15 instead. The second place was very different from the first. At the first place, the lady kind of left us to our own devices and didn't really offer much guidance (although she was quick and knowledgable to answer any questions we asked). At the second place, however, Ann greeted us right away, sat us down at a table, and went through a book of pictures of cake designs with us in addition to giving us a guided tour of the cake displays in the room. She then brought out a plate that had a full slice of each of about 10 different flavors of their cakes! We both LOVED their specialty, which is a mandarin orange cake. Since we are pretty sure we've decided to go with this place, I feel comfortable writing what we've decided about our cake so far. It will be a four-tier cake (because of the number of guests we are anticipating). The top tier, which won't be served at the wedding (it's for us to save and eat on our first anniversary), will be the mandarin orange cake. The second tier will also be mandarin orange, the third tier will be chocolate, and the bottom tier will be mandarin orange again. So basically, our guests will get a choice between mandarin orange and chocolate cake. The entire cake will have a standard buttercream frosting, mostly white with some blue in the designs. We decided to do an alternating design. The top tier will be single dots, second tier will be a design called "trailing hearts", third tier will be single dots again, and the bottom tier will be a scroll design called the "harmony scroll". We haven't figure out the exact details yet (like which aspects of the designs will be in blue), but we have time to figure that out. Ann then gave us all the cake samples we hadn't finished to take home!
After that, we decided to go into downtown Silver Spring for lunch. It was a beautiful day outside (a nice break from the crazy heat we've had all summer!), so we parked and walked around a little bit before deciding to go to the Copper Canyon Grill for lunch. The food was delicious, but the portions were HUGE! I got a salad, and by the time I was done, I was so full I almost couldn't breathe! We walked around a little bit more, then headed back to the car to go to our next appointment.
Our next appointment was with our florist. My parents had met with them several times already, but this was the first time Marcus and I met them. They had arranged several sample centerpieces for us to look at, but we ended up completely changing all of it. The samples were mostly purple with a little bit of blue (which was not at all what I wanted), and they also had another sample that was all white flowers. On our way in, we happened to see them loading a van for delivery, and we noticed these beautiful orchids that were a deep purply-blue. I had the idea of trying some of those in the white sample to see what it would look like, and it was so beautiful that we ended up going with that! We also changed up the bouquets - mine will have white roses, white calla lilies, and a few scattered blue delphiniums. The bridesmaids' will have white roses and the purply-blue orchids! I have to mention the guy who runs the florist shop. He was the highlight of the weekend! Neither Marcus, nor my mom, nor I have any clue about flowers, but this guy was super helpful and hysterical! His name is Sharon (he's Israeli), and he was cracking jokes the entire time we were there! I will definitely be giving him a great review on The Knot after the wedding (although he won't actually be there, but we are primarily dealing with him in the planning). We left feeling very satisfied with all we had accomplished!
On the way back, we stopped to visit my grandparents. We visited my dad's parents first, and then my mom's. My grandma (mom's mom) had asked me to bring a piece of cake for her, so we ended up giving her the entire box of leftover cake from our second tasting! Bernie showed us his pictures and video from my cousin's wedding a couple of weeks ago (I wasn't invited, but my parents went), which was really nice.
When we got back to my parents' house, we collapsed on the couch for about 10 minutes before my mom declared she was hungry and wanted to go to dinner. I was still stuffed from lunch and all the cake, but since I was the only one, we went to dinner anyway. We went to Tara Asia (owned by the same people as Tara Thai), and I got pad thai, but only ate about half of it. We finally went back to my parents' house for the night after that, spent a little while sitting out on the deck working on our invitation wording, and then showered and went to bed.
Sunday was our quiet day, which was SO nice! We slept in (I got up around 11:30, Marcus didn't get up until closer to 12:30), then went to get crepes with my friend Laura C. We got back around 3, then hung out around the house and helped my mom get ready until the Schwartzes (family friends) came over for a BBQ around 5:30. We had a great time with them, as always, and they left around 10:30. We got ready for bed and then played a couple of games before going to sleep.
Monday (yesterday), Marcus and I got up at the buttcrack of dawn (I was up at 6:15, Marcus at 7) to go to our engagement photo shoot. We met up with the photographer at 8 at Washingtonian. I wasn't sure what to expect, since I usually hate posing for pictures, but Steve (the photographer) was awesome and made it a lot of fun! We walked around the lake, posing for pictures in various places, and finished up with a few shots on the bridge. We should get the link to the online proofs in a couple of weeks, so stay tuned! I can't wait to see how the pictures turned out!
After that, we went back to my parents' house and spent a couple of hours trying to figure out ceremony music. We listened to some clips on youtube, and Frieda (one of the Schwartzes, lol) offered to burn us a copy of a cd she had of Jewish wedding music. We didn't really make any decisions yet, we're supposed to work on that this week (although when, I don't know, this week is pure insanity!), but we did take Frieda up on her offer. We stopped at their house to pick up the cd on our way to the airport.
We got back to our apartment around 5:30 pm, unpacked, decided we didn't want to go out again, so ordered takeout for dinner, and tried to get settled. I dug out the program from Joel and Shosh's wedding to see what ceremony music they used, and we found some more youtube clips. Then we showered and went to bed early - we were exhausted!
Next weekend we're going to Florida for Marcus's grandfather's birthday, and we're also meeting with the rabbi while we're there. Hopefully we'll get the invitation wording finalized, too! And we'll be back in Maryland in a few weeks to do our menu tasting, which I'm really looking forward to! It's a crazy time, but I'm actually having a lot of fun with it so far.
We flew up Friday evening and got to my parents' house around 9:30 pm, which was really nice, because we usually take a much later flight and don't get there until more like midnight! We settled in and watched a movie with my parents, then went to bed at a decent hour.
Saturday was our busiest day. We got up around 9 am, and headed out to our first cake-tasting appointment at 10. I don't like cake, so I was pretty much expecting Marcus to take the lead on this one, but I actually ended up tasting most of the flavors too. We walked around the room for a while, looking at some cake displays, while the lady prepared our tasting samples. This place's specialty is their raspberry cake (which was really good, by the way!), but we also tasted a variety of other flavors, including pina colada, key lime, almond, and chocolate chocolate chip. We quickly discovered that we liked the fruity flavors best. We also tried several fillings (pineapple, strawberry, and raspberry), but decided that since we liked the fruity cakes, a filling would make it TOO fruity and too sweet.
We got finished there earlier than we expected, so we called the next place we were going to ask if we could come earlier. We were originally supposed to go there at 12, but ended up getting there around 11:15 instead. The second place was very different from the first. At the first place, the lady kind of left us to our own devices and didn't really offer much guidance (although she was quick and knowledgable to answer any questions we asked). At the second place, however, Ann greeted us right away, sat us down at a table, and went through a book of pictures of cake designs with us in addition to giving us a guided tour of the cake displays in the room. She then brought out a plate that had a full slice of each of about 10 different flavors of their cakes! We both LOVED their specialty, which is a mandarin orange cake. Since we are pretty sure we've decided to go with this place, I feel comfortable writing what we've decided about our cake so far. It will be a four-tier cake (because of the number of guests we are anticipating). The top tier, which won't be served at the wedding (it's for us to save and eat on our first anniversary), will be the mandarin orange cake. The second tier will also be mandarin orange, the third tier will be chocolate, and the bottom tier will be mandarin orange again. So basically, our guests will get a choice between mandarin orange and chocolate cake. The entire cake will have a standard buttercream frosting, mostly white with some blue in the designs. We decided to do an alternating design. The top tier will be single dots, second tier will be a design called "trailing hearts", third tier will be single dots again, and the bottom tier will be a scroll design called the "harmony scroll". We haven't figure out the exact details yet (like which aspects of the designs will be in blue), but we have time to figure that out. Ann then gave us all the cake samples we hadn't finished to take home!
After that, we decided to go into downtown Silver Spring for lunch. It was a beautiful day outside (a nice break from the crazy heat we've had all summer!), so we parked and walked around a little bit before deciding to go to the Copper Canyon Grill for lunch. The food was delicious, but the portions were HUGE! I got a salad, and by the time I was done, I was so full I almost couldn't breathe! We walked around a little bit more, then headed back to the car to go to our next appointment.
Our next appointment was with our florist. My parents had met with them several times already, but this was the first time Marcus and I met them. They had arranged several sample centerpieces for us to look at, but we ended up completely changing all of it. The samples were mostly purple with a little bit of blue (which was not at all what I wanted), and they also had another sample that was all white flowers. On our way in, we happened to see them loading a van for delivery, and we noticed these beautiful orchids that were a deep purply-blue. I had the idea of trying some of those in the white sample to see what it would look like, and it was so beautiful that we ended up going with that! We also changed up the bouquets - mine will have white roses, white calla lilies, and a few scattered blue delphiniums. The bridesmaids' will have white roses and the purply-blue orchids! I have to mention the guy who runs the florist shop. He was the highlight of the weekend! Neither Marcus, nor my mom, nor I have any clue about flowers, but this guy was super helpful and hysterical! His name is Sharon (he's Israeli), and he was cracking jokes the entire time we were there! I will definitely be giving him a great review on The Knot after the wedding (although he won't actually be there, but we are primarily dealing with him in the planning). We left feeling very satisfied with all we had accomplished!
On the way back, we stopped to visit my grandparents. We visited my dad's parents first, and then my mom's. My grandma (mom's mom) had asked me to bring a piece of cake for her, so we ended up giving her the entire box of leftover cake from our second tasting! Bernie showed us his pictures and video from my cousin's wedding a couple of weeks ago (I wasn't invited, but my parents went), which was really nice.
When we got back to my parents' house, we collapsed on the couch for about 10 minutes before my mom declared she was hungry and wanted to go to dinner. I was still stuffed from lunch and all the cake, but since I was the only one, we went to dinner anyway. We went to Tara Asia (owned by the same people as Tara Thai), and I got pad thai, but only ate about half of it. We finally went back to my parents' house for the night after that, spent a little while sitting out on the deck working on our invitation wording, and then showered and went to bed.
Sunday was our quiet day, which was SO nice! We slept in (I got up around 11:30, Marcus didn't get up until closer to 12:30), then went to get crepes with my friend Laura C. We got back around 3, then hung out around the house and helped my mom get ready until the Schwartzes (family friends) came over for a BBQ around 5:30. We had a great time with them, as always, and they left around 10:30. We got ready for bed and then played a couple of games before going to sleep.
Monday (yesterday), Marcus and I got up at the buttcrack of dawn (I was up at 6:15, Marcus at 7) to go to our engagement photo shoot. We met up with the photographer at 8 at Washingtonian. I wasn't sure what to expect, since I usually hate posing for pictures, but Steve (the photographer) was awesome and made it a lot of fun! We walked around the lake, posing for pictures in various places, and finished up with a few shots on the bridge. We should get the link to the online proofs in a couple of weeks, so stay tuned! I can't wait to see how the pictures turned out!
After that, we went back to my parents' house and spent a couple of hours trying to figure out ceremony music. We listened to some clips on youtube, and Frieda (one of the Schwartzes, lol) offered to burn us a copy of a cd she had of Jewish wedding music. We didn't really make any decisions yet, we're supposed to work on that this week (although when, I don't know, this week is pure insanity!), but we did take Frieda up on her offer. We stopped at their house to pick up the cd on our way to the airport.
We got back to our apartment around 5:30 pm, unpacked, decided we didn't want to go out again, so ordered takeout for dinner, and tried to get settled. I dug out the program from Joel and Shosh's wedding to see what ceremony music they used, and we found some more youtube clips. Then we showered and went to bed early - we were exhausted!
Next weekend we're going to Florida for Marcus's grandfather's birthday, and we're also meeting with the rabbi while we're there. Hopefully we'll get the invitation wording finalized, too! And we'll be back in Maryland in a few weeks to do our menu tasting, which I'm really looking forward to! It's a crazy time, but I'm actually having a lot of fun with it so far.
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