Oh, Home Ownership...

Let's go ahead and start this post on a positive note. 

Friday we booked our florist. She did a mock up of what my bouquet will look like and I'm very happy with the results. Check.

Today I paid the deposit and booked our baker. We went with Lori from Bagels and Cakes because she makes awesome "Cake Boss" grooms cakes, which we want. And, the best part, she'll make our rock candy cake for us! This is the inspiration for our cake: 

Obviously ours will be have purple and orange rock candy on it, but that's the gist. Now to find a sweet baseball themed topper.

I also have banana spice muffins in the oven and they have walnuts and white chocolate chips in them. And I'm making pumpkin better than sex cake tonight too. So be jealous of my sweet baking skills. 

Now, for the less exciting part, home ownership.

Right now we're dealing with the dryer. It's not producing heat and our wet clothes are just tumbling endlessly because it has a sensor in it that adds time if things aren't dry yet. It's just over a year old, we got it last year the day after we closed on our house. We bought the extended warranty  but they can't send someone until NEXT Thursday the 29th. Seriously. That's more than a week, it's insane.

We also got our gas logs hooked up in our fireplace. The bill for that hasn't come yet. I can only imagine what that will be. We ended up having to buy a hood for it too since we have an old school, heat producing fireplace with a very shallow firebox with outward slanting walls. Can't risk ruining our tv that's mounted over the mantle. Or, ya know, the custom, hand carved, original 1930's wooden mantle. So today we figure out the technique for how to properly use masonry bits and screws to drill that into the brick face of the fireplace. It seems to be diverting the heat enough, so we'll see.

Annnnnd, just to add more to the fun, last night we discovered the kitchen sink leaks. I remember when we had our inspection Hans told us there was still one rouge ceramic pipe under there to keep an eye on. Surprisingly enough though, it's the pvc pipes and they've obviously been leaking for a while. It smells like moldy broccoli under there. Good thing nothing of value is underneath. Just the left over paint cans from when the house was painted while it was on the market. I had intended to take them out, clean up under there and move our cleaning stuff under there. Now, until we fix that, and probably the floors under it that are probably rotting, it's nothing but a bucket so we can still use the sink with minimal fear of further destroying our floors. Not that we like them anyways, but still. I had every hope to lay new floors over the existing since I'm terrified of what an 81 year old sub floor looks like and have no desire to find. I may have to face that fear now. 

Our next house will definitely be newer. This will be my only blue and yellow 1930's kitchen and pink 1950's bathroom. Not that I don't love our house and all it's charm. But I'd give up my pretty original glass doorknobs with skeletons keys for a newer house that didn't require so much damn love. Joy.

Anywhooo, 192 days to go! That's 6 months, 1 week and 4 days. Woo!

Crunch Time

I feel like I'm in wedding crunch time right now. It's getting down to the wire (sort of) and things are starting to get to the point of have-to-get-done-now. 

I've been in contact with our new coordinator a bit. I told her I'd get hold of her after the new year to set up a details meeting. Asked about menu tasting and she said we can set that up whenever. So I'm thinking I may contact her next week about that and set something up for prior to our details meeting.

I have my florist appointment and the final cake appointment on Friday afternoon. Once both those things have deposits down on them I can draft our vendors list to have both for myself and to give to the Ramada, as they require one. I still need to call our DJ again about adding the ceremony music to our contract. 

Speaking of details, I started putting together a list of all the different "details" things that I need to have an answer to when we go to the meeting, such as "centerpieces", "arch decor", "aisle decor", "linens", etc. I figure if I can give a super detailed list, including pictures when possible, to the Ramada, then they can just replicate it on the day of and I won't have to answer any questions or whatever. 

I also met up with my friend Brittany yesterday and asked her if she would do a reading at the ceremony. She said yes and I'm sooo excited for her to be part of our wedding.

I've started to go through my wedding pinterest board and put together a must have list of shots for our photographer. I'll have to have my mother and Rob's mother draft formal family line up must have pictures. I plan on having a list of everyone who will be in pictures, in the order we plan to take them, and give everyone in them a copy so they know when they're needed a for how long. I'd like to take only about 20 minutes for formals then move onto wedding party and then just us pictures. 

Lauren is officially my first bridesmaid to order her dress! Those need to be ordered by December to be here on tim and have time for possible alterations. 

Yesterday I went adult trick or treating, as I called it. I drove down maybe about ten miles of the Seneca Lake Wine Trail to go a cork gathering rampage. I went to maybe seven or eight wineries and it's great because they just dump the corks in a bag and off you go. Love free stuff! I got about half of what we need. If I had the time I would have drove more of the 40 miles trail and been able to get enough, but I'll just go again in a few weeks. I'm going to use them to make escort cards. I figure since we live in wine country that can be my slight nod at that. Plus now my car smells nice like fine wine. 

I feel like I'm forgetting stuff, but maybe not. Anyways...

200 days!!! That's a mere 28 weeks! Or 6 months, 2 weeks and 5 days. 

Coordinating Conundrum

Little snafu today... our coordinator is leaving our venue. I'm a bit sad about this. She's been there 15 years, all the vendors in the area know her and love working with her. She has nothing but amazing reviews. I was so excited to work with her. And that was coming soon, after the six month mark. And now she's leaving. 

I didn't hear this from our venue though, which is some what disconcerting. I found out at work. Our secretary called to confirm our date and room reservations for our winter luncheon, conveniently being held at our venue. She called the coordinator who confirmed, then gave her the new name and contact information for the new, soon to be coordinator. I planned to email to current lady tonight, but I go too caught up with other house things. It's on my to do list for tomorrow. Just... frustrating. I've read too many horror stories on The Knot about girls having the coordinator switched and things not going well. I'm hoping because we still have some time that'll work out alright. 

Otherwise, on the planning front, all the silks I bought showed up. We officially have all our flowers except for the few real ones we're getting for myself, Rob, and our parents. I also bought shoes. I found them a few weeks ago and wasn't ready to commit. I went back for them and they were marked at 30% off. Score!

My dress... I'm stressed again. When I picked it out, the sample was an eight and fit perfectly. But sometimes samples are stretched out from being tried on. I got measured and all my measurements were in between sizes, three different ones to be exact. The consultant told me to pick whatever I was comfortable with so I went with a ten, thinking that was safe. But I tried on some party dresses with Emily and Annie a month or so ago now and those were all eights and fit perfect. I wanted to order an eight when I ordered the dress, but I was nervous it'd be too small and I'd end up in tears. Now I wish I had gotten an eight so I wouldn't have to pay for so many alterations. 

Lastly, rings. My engagement ring is a large, awkward shaped ring that takes up a lot of finger real estate. It's going to be difficult to fin a ring to put next to it. My thought has been to move it to my right hand permanently post wedding and put something flashy in it's place. I found what I wanted online, but the price recently went up. Like way up, like doubled in price up. So in a panic I went to a bunch of jewelry places to search for something similar in store, only to come up disappointed. I finally caved and tried something on next to my ring. I can fit a very thin, small band behind/under it, but I'm not sure. I'm so torn about what to do. 

I'm ready for this wedding to happen already so we can be married and happy and move onto the marriage part. I'm really excited for the wedding, but seven more months might kill me. 

Anyways, today marks exactly seven months! Woohoo!


Update 11-2: A letter came from our venue today. It was really nondescript, just stating there was going to be a change in contact person and that someone would contact us soon with the updated contact information. So it sounds like they haven't actually hired a new coordinator yet. The name that the coordinator gave our secretary was the Sales Director's information, so she must be the stop gap until someone new starts. Hopefully someone's in there soon and we can get caught up on the new person's information and schedule a time to meet them. Frustrating.