The last two weeks have been extremely productive as far as wedding planning is concerned, hooray!
RSVPs
After my last update, I spent a good portion of the following day messaging those we had not heard from and was able to get responses from the bulk of them (which were nos, as anticipated). I still have a handful of people I am waiting on for sure answers from, but it looks like we will end up with somewhere between 40-50 people total, ourselves included. I think this is a great number for our venues (and much better for our pocketbook)
Kiss Goodnight (aka Dessert Party)
Since our guest count has officially dropped, we are now going to be able to hold our entire party at UK Lochside! We were grateful that our planner suggested to have the party in Canada and then move down to Lochside for the fireworks viewing when she said that our guest count was too large for UK Lochside, but it was never our first preference. We are both happy with how this has worked out. Right now our menu is at $52/person, but we (especially me) are leaning toward eliminating one of the two “action stations” because that would drop the cost down to $41/person and still offer a variety of tasty items for our guests. I’ve done the math and if we co make the cut, that cost savings will almost completely cover the cost of our favors.
Practical Shoes
After much online browsing (and some time just not worrying about it), I finally found a pair of “practical” shoes to wear after the ceremony is over. They’re leather, were on clearance, are comfy, and are something I will wear again. SCORE!!!
Earrings
Choosing earrings proved to be much more challenging than I anticipated it would. I ordered these from Etsy (for less than $20!) and I love them and think they go great with my dress. However, they are much too small and dainty, so I returned them.
Then my Mom loaned me these, which I like, but I don’t think they “go” with the dress.
After some thinking, I decided that perhaps I should change the direction of the type of earring I was looking for. So I put together some choices from Etsy, posted them to the DisBrides FB group, and sent them to my Mom and both MOHS. One pair was the overwhelming choice: Ta-da!
I ordered them from Etsy (less than $25 including shipping) and they should arrive on Monday. Please keep your fingers crossed that these work out like I’m hoping they do!
Guest Book
Last weekend we finally decided on our guest book, and it isn’t either of the choices I posted about before. We spent more than we had originally planned, but it is a one of a kind painting on stretched canvas (12”x16”). We chose to have the artist create ours without the swing and will be using black, silver, and purple inks for the prints.
The only part that still kinda bums me out, is that since this is not something that will need to be framed, we won’t have a mat for our guests to sign their names on, and neither of us like the idea of them signing on their fingerprint. I may still get a mat to have them sign and just use it around a picture of us from the wedding day.
Bouquets, Boutonnieres, Corsages, and Pomanders
Although I really need to have started working on prototypes and mock ups of the personal “floral” that I am DIYing at the beginning of September, moving did not allow that, so I am behind where I want to be. That being said, I have spent several hours of the last couple of weeks playing trial and error for getting sizes and proportions correct, and have figured that part of things out, so forward progress is being made. I need to have the elements that I am making for The Husband’s boutonniere completed by the time I travel to WDW at the beginning of November for the Wine & Dine Half Marathon, so that I can get them dropped off to my floral team so that they can incorporated them into his bout that they are creating.
Ceremony
We spent some time last weekend putting together some ceremony ideas to send over to our officiant, so that he has something to work from. The Husband didn’t contribute much to the ideas for the actual wording of things, more to the order of ceremony, which is a tad bit frustrating, but not necessarily surprising. He did mention (for the first time) that he would like to add a unity ceremony. I’m fine with it, just was a bit surprised, and it means that we now have to decide on vessel/medium/etc. Also, we agree that we would like to include my stepson in the unity ceremony.
Escort Cards/Table Signs/Favors
It has been our plan to scan paper FastPasses that we have gotten from Disneyland/DCA in order to create FastPass escort cards and corresponding table names. Another bride on here (I don’t recall her screen name, but she is in Japan right now), linked to a vendor on Etsy who she ordered her FastPass Save the Dates from. We checked out his work and loved it and we can’t beat the price (especially for the time savings for us), so we will be ordering our Escort Cards and Table Names from him, probably next weekend, once I’ve confirmed the straggler RSVPs.
We still haven’t decided on our favors, but we have narrowed it down to either the juice glasses or the glass mugs from Arribas Bros, that we will have personalized with our date and names. We are planning on ordering them directly from Arribas Bros (something else I need to do while I’m at WDW in November) because we can use our AP discount on the cost of the glasses (sadly not on the personalization cost) and it will be cheaper than ordering through Floral. The reason that we still haven’t narrowed it down is that I don’t like the lack variety of characters they offer on the juice glasses (and it’s like the one size glass that they don’t offer the castle design, what?) and I’m hesitant to just do Mickey for boys and Minnie for girls. The glass mugs have a better variety, but are $4 more a piece, which adds up quick when you are looking at somewhere around 45 of them.
Getting Ready Shirts
The company was super excited that I wanted to wear their shirts for getting ready and were very easy to work with (and didn’t charge me any extra for my special order). The Oh Happy Day with the Mickey head for the “O” will be printed in white on black slouchy T-shirts. I placed the order earlier this week and am not sure on how long production should take, but my guess is that I should have them within the next couple of weeks.
Makeup
My friend who was going to do our makeup on the day of the wedding has had to officially bow out, so I’ve added makeup services through my hair vendor (Kristy’s Artistry Design Team). I ended up choosing to add a third artist (we only have 8 services total, 4 hair, 4 makeup) because they were only going to send 2, but because we need to have all services completed by 6:15am at the latest, that meant we would need to start at 3-3:15am instead of at 4am! I just couldn’t do it (not to mention that they would have added ANOTHER early morning charge), so she said that if we added a third artist, we could still start at 4am and be done by 6-6:15am. That was an extra $100 I wasn’t planning on spending, but my (and my party’s) sleep is worth it.
My Dress
The bridal salon called on Tuesday to let me know that my dress had finally been delivered. I made an appointment for Wednesday at opening to go try it on. My fears that the dress would not fit/zip up all the way were not unfounded. It only zips a little over halfway up. The consultant assured me that there is enough room in the seams for the dress to be let out and that I should be fine. The salon I purchased my dress from does not do alterations, but have a couple places they recommend, so I still need to take it to a professional seamstress to get their opinion (and quote for the cost), but am hoping to put that off a few more weeks. Once our house sale closes and funds (hopefully within the next few days), I will go in and pay off my balance and be able to bring the dress home. On the bright side, the length I ordered my dress is absolutely perfect with both pairs of my shoes, even though there is over 4" difference in their heights!
We still have plenty to do, but I'm feeling much closer to be on track to get everything done in time.