298

First and foremost, let's start with wedding related things today. I finally bought a dress. I agonized over the same two dresses for like two more hours on Friday. Annie came in to be the voice of reason, as she sometimes is. Also, she hadn't seen either dress yet and was completely unbiased. I ended up settling on the second dress. As much as I'll have to push the images of ruffles out of my mind, I'm happy with my choice. I think what finally did it for me was when I put it on the last time, Better Together by Jack Johnson came on. Rob and I both love us some Jack and our first dance will be a Jack song. So as I was being laced up and listening to it, it made it feel right. Although, I did spend many a months envisioning the first dress, so here's to hoping I don't wake up in a cold sweat a few months from now questioning my decision. 

Other than that, nothing really wedding related is happening. Rob asked again about cake tastings, so I guess I'll call this weekend and set one up. Next month I plan on finding a florist. Then everything will be booked except a caterer for the rehearsal dinner. 

On a non wedding related note, I ran my triathlon on Sunday. I killed it! I finished in 2:14:45, way under my less than 3 hour goal. I averaged 16mph the whole bike ride, which is great! I'm hoping to run three next year. Scott was there taking photos for The Eagle and took a bunch of me and submitted them for the spread in the paper. It comes out tomorrow, so I'll have to look for it. 

Compliments of Scott Schild Photography

Also, a most happiest of birthdays to my beautiful mother!

Ok, enough bragging! As usual, there are 9 months, 3 weeks and 4 days until the wedding, or 298 days! Woo for being under 300!

Wedding Checks, Triathlons and Decks

So, it seems we finally have an officiant and two flower girls. That's exciting! Rob's cousin Daniel is ordained and is going to officiate for us. And two of Rob's cousin's little girls will be our flower girls. There's too many boys to make it fair to pick a ring bearer, so we may forego that. Though, Rob really wants Griswold to do it. I don't think he'll be well enough behaved and I'd be hesitant to ask someone to truck him back to our house after the ceremony. So we'll see. 


I still don't have a dress. My mom and I are going back to New York Bride after she gets out of work on Friday. Should I chose the dress that's been causing my agony though, we'll go buy the sample from Spybaby, since that one is my size. The sample at NYB is way too big for me. I've exhausted my salon options in Syracuse at this point, so I need to bite the bullet or be prepared to drive to Rochester in hopes they'll have other options out there, which I don't want to do. 


I have a makeup trial scheduled for late October. I may call and bump the time to an earlier slot in the day, take the day off of work and also go get my hair done that day too. Get the full effect.


I also ordered 18 eggplant purple table runners off the wedding classifieds board on The Knot for only $36 including the shipping. It's an awesome deal and they'll be here Friday. Our venue includes only white, ivory or black linens free of charge. Custom colors have to be ordered and paid for, so we're going to use the white and try to find out own colored linens. If I can find enough eggplant colored napkins we'll be all set. 


On a not wedding related note, Rob and I are still grueling away at the deck. It's finally starting to look mostly finished. We'll be finishing up laying decking this weekend, finishing the second stair case and hopefully starting to put up railings. He says this will go quick. I beg to differ. Nothing about this project has been quick and we're going to have to some major cutting for the railing posts. 


And speaking of the deck, I fell through it Sunday. Literally, through it. We had some four foot deck boards laid out and the ends were hanging over an opening between joists. I took a step backwards without looking where I stepped first. I stepped on the ends hanging over the nothingness and they popped up like a cartoon character stepping on the end of a rake and down I went. I caught myself on the joists, thankfully, considering the deck is well over five feet off the ground. I thought I broke my wrist at first, but everything wiggles and moves mostly pain free, so I opted out of going to the hospital. My triathlon is Sunday and I've been training since November. Last thing I need is to be told I can't race seven days before the event. 


I have tomorrow and Friday off from work. Tomorrow we'll do deck stuff in the morning then go to camp in the afternoon. Friday I just couldn't justify driving back to Geneva just to turn around and come back to Cuse on Saturday to rack my bike and pick up my race packet. Then Sunday is my big day, the Syracuse Irongirl! Wish me luck!


Today also marks ten months until the wedding. Only 304 days left!

Dress Dilemma

Oh gosh. I've been dress shopping and I think it's starting to eat away at my brain. We've been engaged almost eight months and I have yet to be stressed about anything up until this point.


I've been to five dress appointments at four different stores and have probably tried on like 60 or so dresses. I'm struggling to make a decision. My problem lies in the fact that I saw a dress I fell in love with back at a bridal expo in January. Knowing I wasn't going to go dress shopping until July, I didn't really look at dresses over those seven months. But in the back of my mind I always thought back to that one from the expo.


Now that I'm trying on dresses, I'm having a hard time seeing myself in anything else. The dress from the expo has completely clouded my vision. I've found other dresses that I love, but I keep going back to the first one. As I look at pictures of myself in the two dresses I'm currently fixated on, I wonder if maybe I should try on more..? I feel like I'm just confusing myself at this point. I'm also wondering if I have that expo dress on an imaginary pedestal by now. The first time I put it on though, I was ready to just walk right out of the store in it. However, it's also over budget. To get it vaguely in budget I'd have to buy the sample. But it'll need alterations and I just don't know.


I feel like I need time to think about it. However, as the days in between appointments drag on, I feel more confused and overwhelmed. Like the extra time to think about it is just making me dwell and question it more and more. I feel like I should try on more dresses but I also think I'll just confuse myself more. I just don't really know where to go from here and I'm so torn and confused about the whole situation. I need it to be Friday again so I can try both dresses on again and try to figure out a decision. I'm not usually this indecisive and it's really, really frustrating me. Blerg.

Playing Catch Up

Oh gosh, a lot has happened since my last post. I've been soooo busy lately with everything. Wedding planning, working full time, school, building an enormous freaking deck on our house. I'm so tired.


Wedding related things, go!


Trying to find someone to bring on site to do at least my make up for the day of. It's been difficult to say the least. The first girl I contacted I was totally set to book. She came highly recommended from the CNY board on The Knot and a bunch of girls there used her and raved about how awesome she was. She's out of Rochester which is fine by me. But her Saturday on site minimum was $500! Plus $1 per minute of travel (about $120) plus taxes and tips. It'd end up costing like $800. There was just no way I could ever spend that much for make up. So I booked a consultation with a girl in Canandaigua who is much cheaper. I can have her do come out and do my make up day of and everything will be about $100. She doesn't do airbrushing which is kind of disappointing, but for a $700 savings, I can live without it. Though I have to call and reschedule the consultation because I accidentally made it for my triathlon weekend.


Rob's mom and I talked with Dana, the owner over at DTO's and we're pretty sure we'll have her coming to cater our pre-wedding rehearsal picnic in the park. So that's exciting. We booked a pavilion big enough for our whole guest list and we're going to extend the invitations to include an rsvp to this to anyone who would like to join us.


I went wedding dress shopping. It was kind of disappointing. I had fun and there were so many pretty dresses, but I've been drooling over a specific dress since I saw it at a bridal expo in January. I tried it on and loved it and so did everyone who was with me. But it's over budget. The second dress I liked is much more budget friendly, but I'm really concerned about the cut height of the waist, mostly because I'm very insecure about being bottom heavy. My mom and I are going again on the 27th, so we'll see how that goes. I need to make a decision soon since I'm quickly approaching the ten month mark and dresses take on average six to eight months to come in plus a month or so time frame for alterations.


I also ordered bridesmaids gifts and ten bouquets silk flowers for bridesmaids bouquets and decorations. I felt like I was behind for a while there. We booked a lot of big vendors so early then didn't have much else to do for a while and then the year mark came and went and I realized we still had things to book. Now we just need to finalize that caterer for the RD, find a baker and a florist, and Rob needs to still formally ask his cousin to officiate. He needs to get on that. I'll pester him this weekend.


We are officially ten months and two weeks away, or 318 days. Whichever you prefer.

Plans in the Works

Well it's been a while. Sorry about that. Not much else has really happened concretely, but there's a lot in discussion right now.


We've been discussing the logistics of our road trip honeymoon and the dog. We want him to come with us, but it will severely limit a lot of things we want to do. Rob is talking about going for a shorter time, flying part of the way, renting a car and only touring like half the places we originally wanted so we aren't away from the dog for as long. I contest that this is probably our last chance to take a big trip like this and that we should take full advantage of our opportunity. His parents have offered to watch the dog, as have mine. So we'll see how that shakes out. 


We've also talked a fair bit about the rehearsal dinner. Obviously the rehearsal itself will be us, our parents and wedding party. But for the dinner we originally were going to host it at our house. But my mom and Rob's mom both voiced concerns about us feeling the stress of hosting a huge party the night before our wedding. Then we dabbled on the idea of the Belhurst and only inviting certain people. But with sooooo many people coming from out of state, most people will be in town with little to do Friday night and we really want to take advantage of our time with everyone. So the new plan is to rent the big party pavilion in the park, about a mile or so down from the Ramada, have backyard bbq catered and invite anyone who's in town by then to come down, eat and relax. I am all about this idea. Rob's mom and him devised it and since his mom and dad are technically hosting the rehearsal, I value their opinion on it. Rob was saying he'd go down and check out the pavilion one of these days. I'm thinking it'd be fun to walk down there with the dog and check it out together so we can make a final decision. 


I also started to consider flowers. We'll be using a fair amount of fake flowers to cut costs. I ordered a bunch of orange silk gerbera daisies online the other day and they should be here soon. Also, we've been talking about setting up cake tasting soon. Honestly, who doesn't want fee cake..?


My two dress appointments are only two and half weeks away at this point. I'm getting really excited to go shopping!


We officially have 340 days left to go. That's 11 months and 6 days! Getting closer everyday!

Less Then One Year To Go!

Well, we made it to the one year mark! Yesterday was the day, so now we're seriously counting down.


Not much new on the planning front. Rob and I are still having fun making music playlists for the reception. 


Annie, Emily and I went to a local boutique the other day and they tried on Bridesmaids dresses. The ones the girls tried on and liked last time were really nice, but they didn't fit my vision. I wasn't feeling the satin or the sheath fit. But we found fabulous chiffon a-line dresses that I'm super excited about. 


I also called and made two appointments to go dress shopping in July yesterday. I'm so excited for that! 


So, we have 364 days to go! Or 11 months, 4 weeks and 2 days, however you want to look at it. Woohoo!

Trivial Affirmation

Wow, it's been a while. Mostly because we don't have a lot to plan right now. All the big necessities are book, for the most part. The upcoming things are going to be picking out attire (us and the wedding party), cake, flowers, ordering wedding party gifts, and an officiant. But that's all stuff that can be done after the one year mark. 


We went to trivia on Tuesday, and we'll go again tonight. The DJ running trivia here in Geneva happens to be Ken Paradise, our wedding DJ. He is awesome! He was hilarious, made the game so fun, got right in with the groups, it was great. We want to go every week just to really build the report with him and get to know him really well prior to the wedding. 


We talked a lot this weekend about wedding music. Ken has a really cool online playlist builder for putting together our wedding/reception music and we'll hopefully start plugging some songs into that soon. Rob and I have agreed pretty much on all the kinds of music and songs we want for our reception. It was pretty easy to make a decision really. We're going to have small children at our wedding, so the music needs to be kept PG. And that's fine by us, as neither of us are big into rap/hip hop/r&b/etc. 


But really, going to trivia and having Ken Paradise running it and making it so fun completely reaffirmed our decision to pick him as our DJ. We could have gone with someone less expensive, but you get what you pay for, and we're excited to pay for a fun reception!


There are only 382 left until the wedding... that's 17 days away from the one year mark!