Oct27

Flame on!

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If you ask me the number one most dramatic decoration is a candle, actually a bunch of candles. I think they completely transform a room and scream elegance and romance. I’ve already written about my search for glass candle holders (by the way I’m no longer looking for silver ones, although I could probably find a place for any that happen to turn up!) and that search has been fairly successful so far. I’ve found that just about every goodwill, salvation army, and other thrift store in the area is well stocked in glass candle holders and I’ve stocked up on about 70 so far. For less (sometimes way less) than $0.50 a piece it’s also really rewarding to walk up to a counter with a basket full of things and watch it ring it at $8.00.

Today I ordered the candles to go with said candle holders. I ordered a lot of candles! 1004 to be exact. Here’s the breakdown:
-12 non-wedding decorations
-500 tealights
-144 tapers
-48 3×3 in pillars
-12 3×9 in pillars
-288 white votives
This is actually something I’m really excited about and I can’t wait for my candles to arrive!

There are two mantles at the reception site that are definitely going to have to look like this! Minus the Christmas wreath…
Oct15

Save-the-Date!

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Huzzah!
With 260 days until the day, I have mailed the save-the-dates! They are officially no longer in my grubby paws and I am very excited about that!
Save-the-dates serve a multitude of purposes:
1) Inform people when the wedding is, and if they’ll be invited. Now not everyone who will be invited got a save-the-date but all the big players (close family and friends) did.
2) Point people towards the wedding website (www.jessicaandchristopher.net), where they can learn about the hotel booking choices and be kept up-to date leading up to the wedding.
3) Serve as a trial run for the invitations themselves. This way if I have an address for someone who hasn’t lived there in 10 years we’ll hopefully find out now and not when we send out the invitations and have deadlines for the RSVPs.
So as far as #3 goes, what did I learn from these save-the-dates?
For starters I learned that silver ink is not acceptable for return address stamps. You may look at this picture and think that these are simply the backs of my envelopes. They are in actuality the backs of my envelops with freshly stamped return addresses on each and everyone. I probably should have stopped after the first couple were obviously too light but you could read them at certain angles before they dried, so I kept right on rolling.

Here’s a close-up. You can see that it’s definitely there but probably not clear enough for the post-office to return anything if need be.

So this frustrated me but after going to 3 stores in Blacksburg I was able to find some black ink and:

I think this works better! Also, since I stamped right over the barely-there silver address there’s an overlay effect and it’s kind of sparkly.

The other thing I learned from the save-the-date process is that it takes a very, very long time. I should probably start my invitations right now.

Sep20

Update

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I’m supposed to be writing a paper but decided to take a quick break to bring ya’ll up-to-date on the wedding planning process.

Done
-Booked venues
-Booked caterer
-Booked band
-Booked photographer
-Booked videographer
-Booked hair and makeup
In-progress
-Save-the-Dates, I’m about 1/3 of the way through addressing them all and after that I’m just waiting on pictures to come in.
-Collecting items for centerpieces
-Mine and my bridesmaid’s dresses, this is my Mom’s project so I can’t take any credit for it. But they are definitely coming along.
-Website, this is mostly done I just need Chris to get it up and running.
-Hotel blocks, I’ve gotten bids from several hotels and I have one under contract and another I still need to decide on.
-Order shoes! The silly shoes I want are out-of-stock and I have no idea if they’ll be coming back!
To-Do

-Find and book a florist
-Design invitations
-Start looking into rehearsal dinner things
Sure there are some things not on the list, but these are some big ones!

Want to see some of my finds from thrift shopping the other day? After posting about the things I needed I made a casual trip to our local YMCA thrift store and definitely hit the mother load.

The actual center pieces will have better ivy, this ivy was growing in Chris’s yard and was hard to work with in addition to having very small leaves. I’m also hoping to put all of this on top of a mirror to really play up the light from the candles reflecting off the vase and mirror. The real tough decision about all this is whether to have silver or white overlays on the table. There will definitely be floor length white table cloths, but do we want to double up on the white for the overlays or go silver? Initially I was worried that the silver would be too dark.
My total tally from the thrift store was: 3 centerpiece vases, 8 candle stick holders (for tall and short candles), 5 candy bar vases, 1 small silver picture frame, and 1 large silver picture frame. The overall damage? $12.

Sep16

Wanted!

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Today I made this sign and hung it on our refrigerator. What is it? Basically it is a list of all (some) of the things I would like to collect before the wedding. I’m hoping to save money and be environmentally friendly by getting all of these used at garage sales, flea markets, and thrift stores. So what are these things? Basically they are all items I need to make the reception centerpieces! Once I start collecting a few of the basic pieces I’ll do a mock-up and post some pictures. But for now here are some clues as to what the picture frames will be used for:
So if you happen to find yourself at a thrift store or garage sale and happen to notice one of these items go ahead and snag it for us! We’ll pay you back and we’ll be that much closer to collecting everything we need!
Sep5

For the love of shoes

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I know it’s not totally true that everyone with 2 x chromosomes is in love with shoes (my brother is proof that it’s not an exclusively female passion at any rate,) but it is definitely a gender roll I fall into. I’m not terrible about it, I can usually control the urge but I definitely appreciate a beautiful shoe. (Wait until you see the one’s I got for our engagement pictures!) So pretty early on my wedding vision involved pictures like these:
Specifically I’m yearning for yellow shoes for the bridesmaids and myself. This is an absolute pain. Finding cute yellow shoes: no problem. Finding two pairs from the same company in the same color to give my girls a heel height option: no problem. Getting said company to actual ship said shoes: big problem.
Stay tuned.
Sep3

I love technology!

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Napoleon Dynamite anyone?
I have no idea how people planned weddings before the internet. It absolutely baffles me. As it is I’m pretty sure I could plan this entire wedding online. I could order things, I could book vendors, I could e-mail invitations, we could do online pre-marital counseling, etc. etc. So how has the internet helped me today?
Hotel blocks! I’ve been dreading this just because it’s not fun, there’s no room for interpretation or making it fun and cute and matching my wedding colors, it’s just boring. However, it needs to get done before I can send out save-the-dates so today I set about tackling the task. My first plan was to call around and see what people could do for me, but then…
Cue the Hallelujah chorus! Basically all it took was entering approximately how many hotel room we’ll need, how many hotels we’re willing to split people between, maximum price, location, and BOOM! I get an email from Britta asking if I had any specific hotels in mind and any special requests. I respond to tell her that I’m looking for 2 levels of hotel (cheap and nice) and that for the nice hotel I was thinking about the Inn at Virginia Tech. So I go about my day: I go to class, I go to office hours, I sit through a meeting, and I return to my computer. I have an email from Britta suggesting an alternate nice hotel and also an email from hotelplanner.com giving me 10 hotel bids! Some of them were too far but other then that it worked out really nicely. I now have a cheap hotel in mind which is still pretty nice with 3-stars, free breakfast, free prearranged shuttle from the roanoke airport, 3.4 miles from the church, and about $20 less than what they advertise on their site. Score! I haven’t heard back from the nicer hotels yet but my hopes are high!
What did people do before the internet?
Aug30

Engagement Party!

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So I definitely have homework I should be doing right now instead of writing this, but really quickly here are some pictures from our engagement party this weekend! My bridesmaids (except Brittany, we miss her when she’s in Ohio) threw this for us and it was really a great event!


Everyone toasting to us! You can see it really got quite crowded in my little apartment!


Our fancy toasting champagne glasses! I may just wear one on my head as a veil.


Delicious punch. Ginger ale + pineapple juice + rainbow sherbet + mango rum.


Our very impressive cake that Waverly made and Lauren decorated. You can see some of the proofs from our engagement shoot that we cut out and stuck in frames.
Me and my Maid of Honor Lauren who came up from Boone to throw this for us.
Us playing a game to find out how well we know each other. People wrote questions for Chris about me and vice-versa.

Aug24

Something to Dance to

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So life has been super fast paced recently and I don’t expect that to change anytime soon. In the past week I moved back to Blacksburg, hung out for a cool 36 hours, and then headed off to the Eastern Shore of Maryland for a wedding with Chris’s family. I returned Sunday evening just in time to finalize my schedule and get myself to class Monday morning. Senior year has officially begun!

Know what else I’ve done in the last week? I’ve found a wedding band! Actually to be fair I found them weeks, months, years (not true) ago, but I have had my eye on them for awhile. I used gigmasters.com to figure out what was in the area wedding-band wise. To be honest I was a little disappointed with the selection as it mostly consisted of punk rock bands that also happen to play weddings. As I’m not particularly interested in dancing to punked out versions of “Shout” I kept looking for a slightly more traditional wedding/variety band. I came across a couple bands that could have worked and emailed them for quotes before I stumbled upon ‘Timeless.’ I drooled over their videos and song lists for a little while before very nervously asking for a quote. Up until now I was only looking at 3 or 4 piece bands and Timeless had 8 pieces! The quote came back slightly higher then the others but at significantly less per piece, and I was really impressed with the speed at which my follow up emails were answered. (Sidenote: vendors who don’t respond to emails = the devil.)
So if I had already found the band what did I do this last week? Well I took Chris to go listen to them! Booking a band was definitely not something I was going to do without hearing the band and they just happened to be playing in High Point, NC at a public event on the exact day Chris and I were supposed to head back to school. High Point is almost half way to Blacksburg so we were able to stop for a couple hours with almost zero inconvenience. And we loved them! They’re very high energy and I’m hoping will be exactly what we need to turn my wedding into the epic dance party I would oh-so-love for it to be! It’s hard to ignore an 8-piece band! They have a sax, trumpet, and trombone so are able to really get a fun swing/dance/jazzy sound that I’m definitely looking forward to!
So far we have a church, a reception hall, a caterer, and a band! This very day Chris and I will be meeting with our hopefully officiant and we met with 2 photographers last week! We are well on the way to getting married! Stay tuned for information on the photography situation, it’ll will probably be posted the next time I’m in the library downloading software!
Aug16

Committed!

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… to our caterer!
My mother and I were in Blacksburg for a super brief 24 hours this weekend to meet with our caterer. We met with Angela from Professional Catering on a drizzly Saturday morning and hashed out all the concerns, questions, and worries we had.
Mom’s biggest concern was that for a sit-down dinner things would get bungled up: people’s orders would be mixed up, food would be cold by the time it made it to the last tables, etc. Angela wasn’t able to completely put this worry to bed but she was able to ensure us that there would be plenty of staff on hand to get the food out in a timely manner and that they cater many weddings and sit-down dinners and are very experienced with the process.
I’ve been to 6-7 events catered by Professional Catering with almost all of them taking place at our reception venue so I am confident that they are familiar with the space and experienced enough to bring everything together nicely.
We got to look at the silverware, china, table cloths, and overlays that we will get to choose from and that all looked good. I didn’t love any of the china options but they were nice enough. It seemed weird to me that they didn’t have a plain white option which would seem to be the most versatile and universal pleasing, but oh well.
While we were in Blacksburg we also got to do a little shopping (we purchased the paper for our Save-the-Dates!) and visit a salon Mom had found online. Elite Style Salon was only a couple minutes from my apartment, and although I had ensured Mom that we didn’t need to look into that yet I’m glad we did. Their mission statement is a verse from 1 Peter and their salon was packed with 3 different bridal parties. Their prices are significantly lower then others in the area but we were able to see first hand that they did great work and were super friendly. I’m going to make an appointment for a hair trial and if I like it (which I’m pretty confident I will) I’ll go ahead and book them! Now I just have to decide what I want my hair to look like. Here’s what I’m thinking:

Half-up, curly, flowers, and a lot longer then it is now. You may remember that a mere year ago this was me:
I love, love, loved this haircut but it’s coming back to bite me now that I’m trying to get married not even 2 years after it. So how am I going to stretch out my locks? Well for one I’m just counting on 2 years being long enough to get it to a good length but aside from that I plan to keep the ends trimmed to encourage growth. My mother has also prescribed that I take prenatal vitamins to encourage my hair to grow. After a quick google search I’ve found that many people do believe that prenatal vitamins can promote healthy hair and nails, and are perfectly healthy for non-pregnant women for short periods of time. Who knew?
So I have lots of time to decide how I want to wear my hair and hopefully plenty of time for it to grow. Right now it falls just below my collar bones. Although after this weekend even if I wear my hair in a pony tail, at least we’ll have food!