Bridesmaid Indecision

After a bit more bridesmaid dress shopping, I've narrowed things down to two final choices. But it's hard to decide on which look to go with, as they're very different and I think the decision may swing the overall concept of the wedding in a certain direction. I'm torn because one is pretty, safe, and traditional, while the other is more my style but also more of a risk. Somehow, I find myself weirdly afraid to do something that is exactly in line with my inspiration board.

Here's the first, Alvina Valenta #9866. It's beautiful and classic, and the girls like it, but it's sort of typical bridesmaidy. I would do it in a pale champagne taffeta:

Alvina Valenta 9866.  

It's very elegant, traditional, and formal. It seems that whenever I make wedding decisions, I pick things that are elegant, traditional, and formal.

But let's recall my inspiration board:

It's more like elegant, romantic, and vintage. And I feel like this dress suits that concept better:

Nordstrom

Plus it has the added bonus of being $100 cheaper and genuinely rewearable, though those advantages are tempered by the drawback of being harder to alter- you can't cut through that lace.

So there's the dilemma. Crazy lady that I am, I'm going to buy the lace one tomorrow and bring it to my dress shop to see it next to my dress. I'm hoping it will look either shockingly awful or really, really awesome. That'll make my decision easier!

Which do you guys like better? Does anyone else feel weirdly afraid to "go for it" with some element of the wedding?

Addressing Etiquette

Sending our save the dates meant that Mr. B and I had to learn all those rules about how you properly address an envelope. You know, does the wife go first? Doctor first? What if the wife’s the doctor?

So I figured I’d put the rules down here, to save someone out there the trouble of looking them up. I compiled with the assistance of my girl Martha, the ladies of the Knot, and our calligrapher on the “right” way to address things. Do it your way, of course, but if you want the official “rules,” here they are:

Spell Out:

• House numbers smaller than 20
• State abbreviations (New Jersey)
• Street abbreviations (10 Main Street)
• The word “apartment”
• Post Office Box

Addressing Rules:

• If husband is a doctor, it would be “Doctor and Mrs. Daniel Brummel.”
• If wife is a doctor, it is “Doctor Sally Brummel and Mr. Daniel Brummel”
• Both doctors, “The Doctors Brummel.”
• If they have different professional titles, it is “The Honorable Rachel Hayden and Lieutenant Ryen Slegr.
• If the wife kept her maiden name, it should go first: “Mrs. Rachel Hayden and Mr. Ryen Slegr.
• Unmarrieds living together are separated by a line, as in:
                 Miss Britney Spears
                 Mr. Joseph Hawley
• If children are invited, the outer envelope is only addressed to the parents, as in “Mr. and Mrs. Andrew Horowitz.” Then, on the inner envelope, include the kids, as in:
                 Mr. and Mrs. Ross Federman
                 Jack and Jill
• For single people, address the outer envelope with their name, and include “and guest” on the inner envelope.
• For a same-sex couple, it is like any other couple: Mr. Jose Galvez and Mr. Robert Cantor.
• Children over 18, even if living with parents, should receive their own invitation

Doing the save the dates also brought up some of those fighty, awkward questions, like who really needs to bring a date, and must we honestly invite those people’s kids?  Things will still change slightly by the time we do invitations, I’m sure, but it’s a good time to hammer out all those details.

Hope this helps!

Further Resources: The Knot, Martha Stewart Weddings

Save the Date? Meh

I'm not sure what I thought the reaction to our save the dates would be. Maybe something like this:

 

Source

Okay, maybe not that psyched. But I did anticipate a bunch of excited phone calls, "the date is SO saved" texts from friends, that type of thing.

But we got nothing! Save the dates were mailed to around 120 people; three days later, not one person had commented.  I started to worry that something went wrong, since our recipients were mostly local and usually receive things the next day. We did use a flourishy, decorative font on the envelopes, after all.  Maybe the post office couldn't read them. I made a few phone calls to check on the situation. Things were fine.

In the end, my MOH and her mother reacted excitedly, calling them classy and beautiful, and Mr. B's mom heard from two guests. On my side, my dad's sister called to acknowledge receipt, and I'm not sure what was said but I know that the exchange somehow wound up in an argument. Definitely not the outcome we were going for! 

So 5 total acknowledgements out of 120. This surprised me because I spoke to plenty of recipients- friends, bridesmaids, cousins- in the five days since we mailed them. I don't expect the world to turn upside down because Mr. B and I formally announced our wedding date, it's old news now anyway, but since I was talking with people regardless, I thought they'd mention it. 

It's not keeping me up at night or anything, but after spending money and time on them, I have to admit I was hoping for a few compliments! At least notice the effort we put into beautifully addressing them, at midnight on a Saturday night no less!

Oh well. Hopefully the invites get our guests a little more pumped.

What reactions did your save the dates get?

The Bachelorette Debate

I have two separate groups of friends. The first is my bridesmaids, the girls I've grown up with and who are my closest friends. I love our girly nights in, usually involving wine and someone's couch. 

And then there's mine and Mr. B's shared group. I met them back in high school, when I became friends with Mr. B himself, and they're my Saturday nights friends- the people I booze with, go on vacations with, and do all sorts of crazy things (ie, ghost hunting, 4 am karaoke, etc) with. The group is huge, and a ton of fun.

(There's Mr. B mean mugging in the sweater combo)

So at a party with the guys last weekend, bachelor/ette talk came up. I wanted to go out in NYC, and I wanted both groups of friends to come. But when I mentioned this to the boys, they were appalled. Reactions went something like this:

"What! We don't want to come to a bachelorette party!"

"Shouldn't that just be with girls? I mean...isn't there going to be like, penis stuff there?"

And my personal favorite, said in complete horror:

"Oh no, does that mean  you're going to want to come to Mr. B's bachelor party now?"

(FYI, no, absolutely not).

I was really surprised at the reactions! All I want for the bachelorette (which, I realize is months away and not my place to plan anyway) is to have an awesome night out with everyone I love, kind of like a huge birthday party. The girls are cool with it, but apparently I'm going to have to call it by a different name if I don't want the boys to freak out! But I'll get them there, I know it!

What's your take on co-ed bachelor/bachelorette parties? Would you do it? Would your friends?

STD Reveal

Okay so a while back, I made a list of September goals, and then promptly accomplished 1 of 4. 

But that changes today! We might be a month behind our goal, but no matter: we've finally finished our save the dates, and will be mailing them out early this week! 

After a unanimous vote for a photo save the date, we ordered the Beautiful Band design from Wedding Paper Divas, and used one of our favorite engagement pictures. It came out, in my opinion, awesome:

Here's the JPEG proof close up, edited, obviously:

We addressed them on the computer, feeding the envelopes through the printer. It was gloriously easy- the Paper Divas envelope stock didn't jam a single time, and we got 70 save the dates addressed in under two hours! The envelopes are my favorite part actually. I LOVE the font (Exmouth, a free download on dafont.com) 

The whole thing:

Overall, these didn't break the bank. We clocked in at around $125 for 75 save the dates, and 90 envelopes with our return address printed on them.  The paper stock is nice and thick, and we received them in just a week after ordering. I'm really happy with them, and I'm looking forward to hearing some feedback from our guests!

My Latest Wedding Obsession...

Is table settings! After our meeting with Jenny last week, I’m all about them. Putting some effort into the table design really make a difference in the look of the reception. I mean, think about it- what are your guests staring at all night? The table in front of them. I kind of can’t believe that as wedding-obsessed as I get, I never even considered this.

Oh well, now I am making up for lost time by drooling over the billion combinations you can create, mixing napkins, chargers, china, and linens. I won’t be using all, obviously, but I’m starting to gather some inspiration. I’m hoping to create an elegant look with a hint of vintage:

Source

Although my mom is busting my chops about using these more modern chargers:

 Source

 And I love, love, love the classic, simple lines of this set up:

Anyway, I am working under some budget constraints when it comes to choosing the linens, so I have to choose carefully. Right now, I’m considering using champagne linens for the tables, ivory linen napkins, and a beautiful china plate or a charger (budget doesn’t allow for both). I’m really into these particular china patterns, both from Party Rentals LTD:

 Gold Florentine

Palais

But I’m not sure if renting china is worth the money. A charger would be a bit cheaper, and size-wise, would make more of an impact, though the china is more theme appropriate.And prettyyyyy.

Anyway, as much fun as I’m having, our florist doesn’t show us the whole look (full sample centerpieces, linen options, etc) until one month before the wedding, so I’ve got a really long time before I have to make a decision. Not that that's killing me a little bit or anything.

Did you do anything to jazz up your tables? What did you use?

Holy Cow I Think I Got One Here

Mr. B is a huge, huge, huge Weezer fan. Though we haven't liked their music since the Pinkerton album, we still, for some reason, attend every show religiously. Observe: 

We’re also gigantic fans of Tally Hall and Ozma, so I really wanted our wedding song to be by one of those bands. It would be personal, fitting, and offbeat, maybe even a little badass.

Except apparently whoever’s writing these songs has a horrible love life. Every song by each band has one or two sweet lines*, followed by chorus after chorus about broken hearts. I sifted through the lyrics of all my favorites but struggled to find something right, until I remembered (what in hindsight should have been really obvious) Falling for You by Weezer. Have a listen:

 (From You Tube)

I suppose it's not perfect, it’s really about the beginning of a relationship, but beggars can't be choosers right? And the lyrics are cool anyway, especially the "gotta go turn in my rock star card and get fat and old with you" line.

So I thought I solved our wedding song dilemma, and I presented my suggestion to Mr. B.

He hated it. "We can't dance to this!" he objected. "It's too fast. We'll look ridiculous."

I argued that we can't dance and will look ridiculous anyway, so what difference did it make? 

We went back and forth for awhile, polling our family and friends. But though they agreed with using it, Mr. B still didn't come around. I put it aside for awhile, mentally resigning myself to paying for the dance lessons required to make this song work.

And then Mr. B went to an Arctic Monkeys concert and came back with the best suggestion ever: Baby I'm Yours, originally done by Barbara Lewis in the 60s, now covered by them. Listen:

It's PERFECT. Easy to dance to, vintagey and romantic in keeping with the theme of our wedding, and so us. I'm known for my penchant for oldies songs, as well as an unwillingness to join the 21st century (still rockin a flip phone with no Internet access, what upp) and the Arctic Monkeys element makes it very Mr. B. Hearing this song was like finding each other, finding our venue, finding my dress (you like how shallow that list gets?) - when we knew, we knew.

YAY Mr. B! I'm so excited for our first dance now!

*Totally have a REALLY AWESOME plan for those sweet lines. Except I want to surprise Mr. B so I can't tell you until after the wedding!  But it’s gonna be GOOD.