Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Wedding Wednesday: Invitation Fascination

94 Days 'Til the Wedding

Welcome to another episode of Wedding Wednesday!  I am halfway through HAND addressing the envelopes for the wedding invitations with no cramps yet!  When I mentioned that I was doing this, my mom asked why not just print out the addresses. Because I wanted to make them at least a little bit fancy.  Here's a little snippet of what 210 guests will receive in the mail within the next two weeks:






EEEEEEE!  Another big shoutout to our invitation designer, Tabibi Design.  These are just awesome!  Some things I do want to mention about our invitation saga, because it ends on Saturday with me at the post office, preparing to send our babies off into the world:  
  • These babies weren't 100% perfect on arrival, but only due to a minor oversight by Ben and me.  We hadn't even considered needing to know the names or the number of people RSVPing, so we kinda, sorta neglected to add anything to the card advising people to write the names of people who are coming. We discussed writing a note on the RSVP card, adding a small typed "directions card" to the invitation suite.  But none of those ideas were good enough for us.  BUT, we did come up with something really good in the end!  We think that what we decided to add does not take away from the design of the suite, and also keeps guest from writing in names of people who are not invited or adding their own plus ones if they aren't entitled to one.  And with 200 people on the guest list, we had to relegate several "plus ones"  to the B List;
  • Traditionally, invitation suites include several inserts.  For example, there may be an additional piece of paper with directions to the church or reception site, another one for making hotel reservations and travel plans, and (this goes goes against etiquette) another one for registry locations.  So the guest might receive an envelope with 5 different pieces of paper!  Well, Ben and I believe in conserving trees and paper...sort of.  But mostly we're just cheap and love technology.  Which is why we decided to go with a simple insert that tells guests to go to our web site for more details.  I wrestled with my mom about having something else in the suite for months, until this past Sunday.  My mom really wanted us to have an insert mentioning directions, hotels, and how to get onto the military base.  And I even crafted one on my computer.  But then when I printed out a sample, I really wasn't happy with it.  Our invitation suite is so wonderful and unique that I really didn't want to add anything to it that would take away from the overall look.  And ALL the details ARE on the website!  I'm convinced that my mom really just wanted to include an insert for the one old person who still doesn't know how to use a computer or how to enlist someone to help them use a computer.  I think in 2005 that would fly, but 2013? I'm sorry, but...no. The last wedding I went to, I found everything I needed on their website. 
More than anything, I really want guests to see our invitations and see a reflection of Ben and I.  They are NOT traditional, although they do have some traditional elements.  But my favorite thing about them is that they seem to convey a sense of fun and celebration! I had someone say to me that this isn't just a party, it's my wedding.  Yes, that is true, but we want our wedding to one big party to start the summer...to start our lives as a married couple and family after 8 years of dating...to congratulate ourselves on making it after dealing with my crazy health problems.  I'm sorry but once June 15 comes around, all I'm going to want to do is PARTY with our good friends and our family members.  Almost kind of a "We made it!" type of celebration.  

Stuff I did over the weekend:
  • My mom and I visited the reception space and decided on a menu and the bar.  I haven't tried all of the options on the Officer's Club menu (Oops. But seriously...aint nobody got time for that!)  soooo I hope it's good! 
  • I finally found some shoes to wear under my wedding dress. Yay!  Checked that off the list.  So I'm pretty much ready for my dress fitting.
  • I went ahead and made an appointment to get my weave put in (Oh, yes) at the end of March.  Now, I just gotta order my hair. And it's my wedding day so I'm gettin the good hair.  Gonna werrrrrrrrk.   
  • Ben and I caught up with Ben's parents on progress with the rehearsal dinner. It sounds like we are really close to having a tent of some sort, so that's pretty exciting! 
Mini Freakout of the Weekend:
Unfortunately, there were more freakouts over the week than I would like to have had, but I'll discuss one in particular.  Bridesmaids dresses.  Ugh.  Man oh man, I am so thankful that after this wedding I'll never have to pick out another bridesmaids dress for someone EVER.  NEVER AGAIN.  Anyhoo, three of them arrived.  I believe I mentioned that in a previous post.  Obviously, as soon as my sisters received theirs I had them send me pictures of them in the dresses. A) they still don't fit... and B) from the picture, they looked like they were the wrong color yellow.  How could this be you ask?  How could you order the wrong color yellow?  SWATCHES.  Damn swatches, that's how.  Panic set in.  I was going to have the cancel the wedding.  I prayed that the pictures my sisters sent me were just taken with one of those instagram filters or something!  There was only one way to know for sure:  I had to go to Woodbridge.  This was it, I thought, walking up the stairs to the guest bedroom where all the wedding stuff is stored for now.  This will determine whether we're having a wedding or NOT.  My sister pulled the dresses out of the closet and laid them on the bed.  And to my surprise...they were perfect!!!  The dresses are the color that I was hoping to get.  Turns out, there is a shimmer to the dress, so the color appears slightly different in shady, or weirdly lit areas.  I'm not thrilled about this fact, but I've decided not to reorder.  And Ben has assured me that this phenomenon of "different lighting/different colors" is quite common. 

I haven't made my wedding planning schedule for the weekend yet. But hopefully it FINALLY includes a visit to Kayak.com to get those honeymoon tickets... :) 
 

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