We Did It!

Oh my gosh! It was wonderful! Our RD Friday night was great. We opened it to our whole guest list and about half (like 70+!) people showed up. It was so wonderful having two days to spend with our families. Our best man made a video slide show thing I totally cried through it. 

The day of went almost flawlessly. The only hiccup was our baker didn't make our grooms cake. It was supposed to be a cake shaped and made to look like the cabin signs from the camp we met at. I called her and she was so rude to me about it. She brought a stupid fondant cookie thing instead of a cake (which I broke in half accidentally while having my bridezilla meltdown in the middle of the ballroom). She said she wasn't going to bring it because she didn't remember us talking about it and never charged me for it, even though we went over it five days before the wedding and I brought her a pictures. My coordinator got really mad at her and immediately sent one of her staffers to Wegmans to buy us a cake that she was going to put the cookie on and write "groom's cake" on. But the baker ended up dropping off and extremely half assed, sloppy looking one (which never got cut and was sent home with us and is actually really delicious.) 

Other than that everything went perfect. The storms that were supposed to happen all weekend still haven't shown up. It was sunny and beautiful. There wasn't a dry eye in the place during the ceremony and everyone loved our personal, written vows. The food was amazing, everyone danced and had a great time. It goes so fast! Rob teared up a number of times. He keeps raving about how gorgeous I was and how he thinks my dress was perfect. He told me during I first dance I made the right choice and it got me all teared up. I never full out cried, but I had tears welling all day over everything. Happy tears, I only legit cried after hanging up on the baker. It just couldn't have been better. Our venue was amazing, the staff bent over backwards to make us as happy as possible and the fact that they truly cared about us was so evident. All our guests had nothing bad to say and were blown away. It was amazing!

That's all the photos that I've gotten back at this point. These are just candids from other people. Hopefully Sonia posts our teaser album quickly!

Tomorrow we're off for our honeymoon!

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Thank goodness today is my last day of work for two weeks. I just stapled all my program materials upside down and backwards, ugh. 

We're done. That's it. House needs to some tending to and cleaning. We meet with our coordinator tomorrow and drop everything off. Rehearsal Friday. Wedding Saturday. Done.

The weather's being a finicky jerk, so we'll see how that shakes out. Hopefully the thunderstorms hold off until at least late evening. 

Then it's honeymoon time! Woo hoo! Five days until that.

Only three days left <3

The Final Countdown

Phhheeeewwwww, almost done. Which is good. We worked really hard to have everything done early, which we pretty much do now. Somehow we're both still feeling a bit stressed, and ready for it just be here. 

So right now our docket is just about cleared. Rob's mom is ironing our linens for us and helping us paint our card box. We met with the DJ last week and hashed out most of the music selections and a time line for the evening. I spoke with our photographer and I just need to shoot her off the photo list. I put together our day of time line, at least the one for the girls. Up until the ceremony they boys can do whatever. Then after that obviously we're following the same one. I went and picked up the meal choice stickers for the place cards and we have our final meeting with our coordinator at the venue on Thursday and we'll drop everything off then too. And right now I'm working on writing my vows. And that's it. Really, we're done. 

Also, I've been checking the weather ever since extended forecasts came out at the 25 day mark. Right now it's saying mid 80's and mostly sunny for both the welcome picnic in the park Friday night and for the wedding Saturday. Fingers crossed it stays that way. It's jumped around like crazy. Ultimately though, I won't freak out if the weather is crummy since it's out of our control. But nice would nice. 

We've been doing a lot around the house. The kitchen and bathroom remodel, we refinished the stair treads and upstairs hallway floors. I did a crapload of cleaning yesterday. Rob's been mowing, we have more landscaping to do. It's slowly but surely coming along. I still have a lot more cleaning to do to get the house to where I want it. 

This weekend we're having our bachelor and bachelorette parties. It'll be nice to hang with our friends and decompress a bit. I'm ready. We're both ready. We had almost an exactly year and a half long engagement. It was 532 days long and we've planned enough and we're both ready to get married. It's been a long time coming. And now, there are only 8 days left. And I couldn't be happier. 

And now, for your viewing pleasure:

To-Do List

Soooooo close, holy crap!

Quick update because it's been a while. We're mostly just sitting idle and tying up loose ends. Here's what we did recently:

Picked up our marriage license!
Put together hotel welcome bags
Had my final fitting
Made our seating chart
Gave the venue/caterer final numbers
Paid off the florist
Finalized numbers and details for the rehearsal dinner
Bought flower girl basket
Acquired a ring bearer that is not our dog
Got my decorations minus the centerpieces from Sharon
Sent Brittany her reading
Worked with Daniel to finalize our ceremony
Figured out the timing for hair and make up the day of

And probably more, but that's what I can dig out of my brain right now. Right now I'm currently assembling favors and I just sent Rob back to work with the place cards and a copy of the seating chart. So he'll be typing those out on his work typewriter tonight. 

Still to do:

Give the final count to the baker and pay the remainder of that balance
Go over the shot list with the photographer and plan her timeline
Make my day of schedule (which is what I'm most stressed about right now and can start once I get the timing confirmation from my coordinator)
Final meeting with our DJ (this Sunday)
Final meeting with the venue (some time the week of)
Drop off the decorations and hotel bags (week of)
Get a manicure
Pack for the night before/day of/honeymoon
Ties for the ushers
Figure out and buy throwy things for the recessional
Write my vows (almost forgot about this one, woops. It's probably important. Probably)

So, not bad. All doable in the amount of time we left, which is like, none. Only 16 days left. Freaking 16 days and I will be married. Hoooooly cow.

The Home Stretch

Pheeeewwww. Getting there. 

We've been working hard to get the house in order. Lots of little updates and sprucing ups going on. This weekend we added a custom-ish built privacy fence/screen thing to the side of the deck that can be seen from the road. So now it's nice and private. We also put a new fan up on the porch. Got rid of the indoor, brass, rusted out thing that was out there with something actually made to go outside.

 

We also added a wonderful splash of color to our house in the form of our front door. The white and navy color scheme was just too much for us anymore. It's since been given and second coat and had the window scraped. Love it. 

As far as wedding stuff goes, we're really in the home stretch here. We've gotten all but two rsvp's back and we have a general idea of the answers for those, so I've got pretty much our final count for numbers at this point. We're going to sit down this weekend with my parents and Rob's parents and do the seating chart. And speaking of parents, they have totally taken the hotel bags into their own hands and have collected tons of stuff to put in them. Mostly. I need to go to the Chamber of Commerce still and grab some maps and brochure things. But otherwise we'll hopefully be assembling those this weekend too. I made these to go into them as well.

Not sure why I didn't make them match the rest of our stationary. I wish I could redo them, but oh well, I don't care that much. 

I did so much hole punching last night my palm has a bit of a bruise on it. I did the little tags for the favors last night, which I'm hoping we can also assemble this weekend. I see a lot of tedious work for the wedding filling up my Saturday. 

Went and picked up tons of decorations from Sharon this past Saturday. She had the arch decoration and all the chair bows for the aisle done. I got the bouquets and boutineers from her not too long ago too. She's working on putting together our centerpieces for us now. Then we should be pretty set on all our decorations. I'm going to be bringing soooo much stuff over to the Ramada that week before. Holy crap. 

Our meeting with our DJ got bumped back two weeks. We were supposed to meet him Sunday but he had a charity event come up last minute, so we rescheduled for the 19th, which is fine. 

Not much left to do after that. Have to talk with our photographer, our baker, pay the florist and baker, get all this stuff together to drop off. And I really need to get my day of timeline done, but I can't do that until I know for sure about hair and makeup counts and get time frames from my make up artist and hair dresser. I don't know. I have a list, I guess I should look at it. Yikes.

Okay, here's the scary part... only 26 days left. Do you see that? Only. 26. Days. Left. Holy smokes. 

Pink Decor No More

Oh my gosh. How close we are.

My dress fitting went well-ish. It's too big, way too big. Between ordering up stupidly and losing weight, the seamstress could barely even pin it there was so much extra fabric. So there's that. My next fitting is May 15th and Emily is going to come along for that since my bustle requires two sets of hands, so her and my mom will need to learn that. 

Our RSVP deadline is a week from today. We're still waiting on like 11 or 12 of those to come in, so about 25-30 people still left in limbo. And none came today, so I might start getting cranky if the last few don't come in soon. Once we have them all though, Rob, his mom, my mom, and myself are going to sit down and work out the seating chart together. Then, once we have seating arrangements made, Rob has kindly agreed to type up the place cards because he is amazing. 

I made our table number things. They came out cute for someone as crafting impaired as myself. 

A little sneak peak for you. Our decorations should come together well. 

I purchased all our favors which came in today, bought myself another different top to wear when getting ready (also came in today!), ordered some more stuff from vistaprint that I needed for welcome bags and favors, and whatever. Who knows. We still need to buy flower girl baskets, something for people to "throw" during the recessional, ties for the ushers. Once some money clears in my bank account I'm going to buy the stuff needed to make our card box and pay the florist in full, 

Also on our to do list at this point is applying for our marriage license and finalizing our music since we have our final DJ next weekend. Things we're currently waiting on from other people is the flowers, decorations, and centerpieces from my mom's friend Sharon who has kindly offered to put those together for us. And we're waiting to get our ceremony back from Daniel with the changes he planned to make to it. 

And, I'm still adding things to my to do list. Not sure how that's possible, but I am. I'm overwhelmed about stuff that's left and the very little amount of time left to do things. 

And on the house front, we finished our bathroom renovation! Plumber came out twice for a leak and it took a bit longer than expected, but it's done and we're ecstatic about how it came out. 

Goodbye pink plastic tile. I will see you in Hell. 

Between the bathroom and kitchen I'm pretty much a master tile worker now. Yup. Missed my calling. 

New floor! No more brown and yellow honeycomb pattern or rouge pink carpet tufts that refuse to come off the floor. So much pink. It's all gone now, thank goodness. And we got a slammin' deal on the floor. Word of advice to all home owners- remnant pile. Yessss!

Loooooove my new bathroom. Totally worth the work and money. A million times over. And, in case you forgot how awful the original was, here's a before and after shot.

And now, finally, the countdown.

We only have 37 days left. 37 days. That's five weeks and one day. That's one month and one week. Only 37 days. Holy crap. 

Shower of Love or Plumbing Fiasco?

So I haven't really updated because we aren't really doing much wedding related right now. Mostly just waiting for rsvp's to finish rolling in. After that we can do our seating chart and place cards, I can type up some variations of head and food counts for the venue and our baker. 

Our final meeting with our DJ is in two and half weeks. Then I'll start the final talks with our photographer. I've slowly begun to put together must have photo lists and family portrait lists. 

We've been pretty engrossed in house stuff lately. Here's a sneak peak of the crazy that is owning an 81 year old home.

Good riddance pink plastic tile. I will see you in Hell. Also, you can probably guess why there's a hole in our kitchen ceiling and bucket on a ladder. Our plumbing does this special thing where whenever it decides to completely crap out it waits until a Sunday night. So, that always makes things more fun. A house update will come eventually. 

We still have a bit to do for the wedding. Our hotel block gets released after today. I have my first dress fitting tomorrow. We have quite a bit left to buy including flower girl baskets, our card box that we need to make, something for people to "throw" at our during the recessional, favors, ties for the ushers, and I'm sure a million things I'm not thinking about. We need to go apply for our marriage license. 

I haven't been nervous or stressed about the wedding really at all except for a few stressed moments over one or two particular aspects. Like dress shopping, what a nightmare. But in general I can honestly say I have no idea how people stress themselves out so much. I have no idea why people need lists and more lists and lists for their lists. I still haven't figured out what other people put in planning binders other than what's in mine (contract copies, payment receipts, guest list with food choices). Really, what's in there..? 

But I will say, right now, I feel slightly overwhelmed. It's coming up so fast. I'm very grateful I made our rsvp deadline for a month out instead of two weeks out like normal people do. But on that same aside, that deadline is only two weeks away and if I want to focus on the things mentioned in the first paragraph as the last things I do after the deadline other than communicating with vendors, then I need to get cracking on everything else. Which is slightly nerve wracking. Fingers crossed all the house stuff is done by this weekend and we can go back to focusing on the wedding, because if I don't do something vaguely productive for it soon I might actually get legitimately stressed, and no one wants that. 

ALSO! I had my bridal shower last weekend!

My Girls! They did such an amazing job! It was wonderful, I loved seeing everyone and getting some time to spend with my loved ones. I can't even begin to thank them enough. I truly do have some amazing friends. 

Okay. Good. Only 46 days left. Yup, that's it. Yikes!