Planning from a Computer

As some of you know, Douglas and I became a one car family while we were living in Maryland. My dear Rav4 never fully recovered from saving our lives in a crash with a drunk driver back in 2006 and it finally got to a point where it was better to take her up to PA and leave her with Mom and Dad should they need a backup vehicle. Between my taking the metro while in the DMV and working from home in NC, being a one car family hasn't been too difficult - until now.

For the first few weeks of Doug's internship in VA, I didn't really have anywhere to be, so being stuck at home until the evening wasn't too big of a deal. Then, the wedding stress set in. I needed to start working out ideas for decor on the tables, figure out shoes, and play with flowers. Alas, being carless, I could not quell my curiosity with a quick run to Michael's or A.C.Moore or Sears. Instead, I threw myself into the classifieds of wedding websites, Craigslist to find local yard sales, and the full array of sites between Pier 1 and Pottery Barn. It didn't take long until I was in a downward spiral of obsessing over details because I couldn't find what I liked or what I thought I was looking for. Before I knew it, I had wasted many evenings up to my digital elbows in websites with nothing to show for it. How could I not find inspiration or even a lead on the internet?!

I went through every extreme - "Holy crap, that's too simple, I need to put a lot more on the tables!" to "Screw centerpieces. Everyone forgets they're there anyway." I was pissed, frustrated, irritable, simply not happy with the fact that I was obsessing over these details that really shouldn't require this much effort and stress. I also felt really stupid for letting it get to this point.

I finally decided to express my angst through Twitter and low and behold, a college friend who follows me throws out a suggestion, a website she used to get stuff for her wedding. Always on the look out for another wedding resource, I checked it out. The very first thing I saw made me giddy - they let you shop by color! Score! This means not scrolling through tons of pages, liking a design and then learning it doesn't come in the color you want. So I opened a tab to shop by red, one to shop by purple, and one to shop by plumb. It only took a minute or two to find a few things worth bookmarking - which had not yet happened in all of my searching! I was bouncing in my chair. After taking a few minutes to come down off of the I-finally-found-something-interesting high, I decided to send the finds out to my girls and mothers to see if they really were as good as I thought they were, or if I was being deceived by my look-what-I-found haze. Verdict: total find!

After a fun phone conversation with Mom and a suggestion by one of the brideswomen, I decided to order one of each of the goodies to see in person to check out the colors and sizes. This would also give me something to play with instead of simply visualizing. What accent color will work best? How should they be put together? Will the idea for a little embellishment work as well as we think it will?

Now my frustrations have turned to excitement. Right before writing this post, I got the email saying that the goodies have shipped! I will finally have something material that I can play with and experiment with and actually feel like I'm doing something for this wedding other than paying deposits and drawing sketches.

It's good to get a reminder every few months that it's all coming together...cause we're running out of time!

Digging the Tracks - Part 4

Welcome back to Diggin' the Tracks. This segment is more sappy and romantic than the past few. You have been warned.

Track 15 - Michael Bublé's Save the Last Dance for Me. Douglas and I are all about some Bublé! Narrowing down which Bublé tune to include on the STD took some work. "Wedding Date" is a movie we both enjoy and has a ton of Bublé tunes. As we're both fans of the show Las Vegas, we really enjoy the episode w/Bublé (tie the lobster part in w/the Friends reference of lobsters - and we have ourselves a mantra!)

(I'm currently trying to track down a clip from Las Vegas, but not surprisingly "Las Vegas" "Michael Buble", "Lobster", and "Catch of the Day" yield more than just clips from the tv show.)

And the clincher for us being all about some Bublé, is a story from when we were apart a few years ago. Douglas was starting his job at CBS Radio in DC and grad school at Johns Hopkins. I was still in my job at CBS Radio in Charlotte and hunting for gigs in DC. We couldn't afford for me to move until we were sure we'd both have incomes that would sustain us as DC was significantly more expensive than NC. So when I left Douglas in Maryland and flew back to NC, I didn't know when I'd see him again. Since we were both CBS Radio employees, we had the luxury of communicating through the company email. At one point, I got a an email with nothing but lyrics. The lyrics read something like this:

Another summer day
Has come and gone away
In Paris and Rome
But I wanna go home
Mmmmmmmm

May be surrounded by
A million people I
Still feel all alone
I just wanna go home
Oh, I miss you, you know

And I’ve been keeping all the letters that I wrote to you
Each one a line or two
“I’m fine baby, how are you?”
Well I would send them but I know that it’s just not enough
My words were cold and flat
And you deserve more than that

Another aeroplane
Another sunny place
I’m lucky, I know
But I wanna go home
Mmmm, I’ve got to go home

Let me go home
I’m just too far from where you are
I wanna come home

And I feel just like I’m living someone else’s life
It’s like I just stepped outside
When everything was going right
And I know just why you could not
Come along with me
'Cause this was not your dream
But you always believed in me

Another winter day has come
And gone away
In even Paris and Rome
And I wanna go home
Let me go home

And I’m surrounded by
A million people I
Still feel all alone
Oh, let me go home
Oh, I miss you, you know

Let me go home
I’ve had my run
Baby, I’m done
I gotta go home
Let me go home
It will all be all right
I’ll be home tonight
I’m coming back home

Home by Michael Bublé

Sitting at my desk, I just start crying (I'm tearing up right now), and if you know me, you know I don't cry much. Ever since then "Home" has always had a special place in our hearts, as has Bublé.

Track 16 -  Love You by Maxwell. Maxwell is one of those artists that you're not really aware that you know of until you sit through one of his albums. So why were we going through Maxwell albums? He was coming to do a concert in DC and we were able to score tickets! Very quickly, one night in DC turned into three since every night sold out in no time! Since Douglas and I were going to go see this artist and I was not familiar, we started our pre-concert ritual of Douglas sharing some of his favorite tunes with me. One by one came the realization of "I know this song!" Fast forward to going to the concert. In DC, you can't just park or come out of the subway near your event location - especially in the middle of DC. So we had to walk several blocks from the metro to D.A.R. Constitutional Hall and it didn't take long to realize that we were going to be with a lively crowd. Heck, once we were in the concert, we got to watch a couple make a baby right there in the audience. Let me just tell you, if you ever have the chance to see Maxwell in concert - do it. He's and his band (yes, band) put on a heck of a show! We go sappy for Maxwell and his love songs. That night we got to hear "Pretty Wings" before it had hit the airwaves. 

Track 17 - Side by Side from one of our all time favorite movies, "Hudson Hawk". If you haven't seen it, know that it's campy as hell. Knowing that, you'll either love it or hate it (majority are the former). 

 There's really no need to explain past this - just go watch the movie. If you do, you'll be rewarded. This is your first clue of things to come. There will be at least one "Hudson Hawk" inspired element to the reception. Will you be able to pick it out?

Track 18 - Leave a Tender Moment Alone by Billy Joel. ***HUGE Billy Joel Fan - Right Here*** There are two things that I grew up with and, therefore, run through my blood: the NY Mets and Billy Joel. While Douglas knew some of the hits, he has been exposed to, possibly, more Billy Joel than he ever thought he would. It went without question that at least one Billy Joel tune would be on the STD and/or play a significant role in the wedding day soundtrack. So how did "Leave a Tender Moment" get chosen out of all of the romantic tunes? Simple - while we follow some of Billy's advice, like "Tell Her About It" and "To Make You Feel My Love", we have never been able to leave a tender moment alone. At least for me, it started out from just not knowing how to react early in the relationship and falling back on laughter or picking on Douglas. I wasn't the only one. ;-) We were very aware that we had never been able to just have a nice moment, and once having that realization, we've never been able to resist the urge to leave the tender moment hanging. It's just one of those little quirks that makes our relationship unique. We give ourselves enough time to go "awwwww" and then turn the "awwww" into sarcasm or crack a joke or pick on the other. To be honest, it makes the tender moments that much more "us" and enjoyable. 

Alright, gang, that does it for our 2nd to last "Digging the Tracks" segment. That's right - there is one left! We are officially at the four month mark, folks!

We Have Food!!!

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a caterer!

We still need to provide the deposit to lock in the date and we will officially be having Blue Ridge cater our wedding!!! They have been beyond amazing in working with us. Douglas and I have been emailing all week to finalize the menu. Blue Ridge even gave us a discount on our drink package so that we'd be within budget!

We only have ONE vendor last to secure - the DJ. We thought we had a lead on a decent DJ but his proposal showed a complete lack of attention to detail, so the search continues.

If You're Getting Married, Hold On Cause It's Gonna Get Bumpy

One thing I'm learning being in the world of wedding planning is that the universe doesn't think that getting married is not enough of a drastic life change and will, more often than not, send another upheaval your way just to see if you can handle it.

I thought we'd be one of the lucky ones. Douglas may or may not be starting a full time job that he loves two months before the wedding, giving him enough time to get comfortable and for Kaylee and I to relocate. I'd stay in my job for at least the next year and a half to two years to help us build up a nest egg after the wedding before deciding what to do next, whether it was to be a stay at home mom or what to do career-wise.

However, the universe apparently has other ideas. Some things have come to light recently that mean I need to get my butt in gear and start figuring out what I'm going to do next. We're definitely not doing kids quite yet, so I need to figure out where my next career step will be. I'm not planning on leaving my current job, but I need to get my backup plan in place should I need it. Consider it packing and checking my parachute.

Ah, life upheavals. You just never can really plan for them. I am grateful that I got the information I did when I did, because I have time to prepare - more time than I would have had otherwise. So at least it won't be a drastic and sudden life change should it need to happen.

Last Vendors Standing

My last caterer post is probably still fresh in your minds because of how ridiculous his shenanigans were. A recent meeting with another caterer, helped to show us the extent of how ridiculous Mr. S was.

As you may recall, Douglas is in Blacksburg, VA, for a paid internship with Modea. Since he's up in the Roanoke area, he's able to meet with vendors that we would otherwise have trouble meeting with. He's already met with one potential DJ and more recently met with a caterer that we've been dancing with since day 1. The most recent part of the dance was in a recent post.

Blue Ridge Catering

Douglas called them the morning after our less than mediocre meal from Szechuan. We were so excited to learn that Blue Ridge still had our date open and anxiously waited to set up a meeting! Douglas was able to take that meeting earlier this week. Without having met any of these folks yet, but having heard them talk and heard how they interact and perform - I cannot stop talking so highly of them!

Blue Ridge was one of the first caterers we bookmarked while doing web searches. They had a nice array of sample menus on their website and those gave us the sense that they'd be able to pull off the types of food that Douglas and I eat (nothing fancy or spicy). Since we first contacted them through their website, Mark, the owner, was quick to get on the horn with us and hear about what we were trying to achieve with our event and what types of foods we liked. Positive #1 - interested about the event and inquired about our food interests. Positive #2 - On the phone, Mark sounded genuinely intrigued by our ideas.

The first time we said "thanks, but no thanks" to Blue Ridge was because of me. Having just started to look at the cost of wedding stuff, I couldn't get over the sticker shock. After spending a few more months in Wedding Budgeting Land, we realized that Blue Ridge was actually really close to what we were budgeting anyway - this brought about our third and latest revisit. The second time we said "thanks, but no thanks", we had made the decision to go with Szechuan after weighing the two, our favorite two, food options. You've already read about how well our family tasting of Szechuan went, so that brings us to this week and our third revisit, but first meeting.

Sadly, Douglas was not able to meet with Mark due to a sudden death in the family. Mark offered to either reschedule or keep the meeting and have Douglas meet with a member of Mark's staff. Positive #3 - Making sure we're taken care of even in the face of a family emergency, but also prioritizing your own family. Major points. So Douglas shows up to Blue Ridge and is greeted with a plate of desserts! Positive #4 - the first caterer/food option to provide any food-item whatsoever. Positive #5 - Douglas said they were reaaaaaaaaaaally tasty. The meeting didn't take long, but sounded like it went really well. We all already had three versions of menus that we had emailed back and forth throughout our revisits, so no time needed to be spent on putting a menu together. They discussed tweaks and what-if-we-swapped-this-item-for-that-service. They were easy going, eager to listen, made suggestions and adjustments on the fly, and came across as genuinely wanting to ensure that we had a great time at our event - NOT that they showed off at our event.

So here we sit (though in different states), waiting for two more versions of the menu to pop into our inboxes. We already know they come highly recommended and have a great reputation. They provide their own staff. They want to get you the food you want, make sure you'll enjoy it, and present it in a proper way. As has been the case with our other vendors, we knew when it was right. I do feel a little stupid that we've been circling this vendor the ENTIRE time we've been planning, but this is why I took my time - to learn from my mistakes and be able to correct them. I feel 100% better dumping a buttload of money into Blue Ridge, knowing that we'll all enjoy the food, than throwing it to Mr. S and knowing no one would enjoy the food.

What's on the menu, you seem to be asking. I'm going to keep that one under my belt for now. I can share one thing that this caterer was totally awesome in providing as an option, but will definitely not be making an appearance (due to cost, sadly).

A clothespin s'mores bar (not a photo of Blue Ridge offering)

Clothespin Smores Station
A Chef Tended Station. Graham Crackers & Bittersweet Chocolate w/ Mini Clothespins, dipped in Marshmallow and torched to order.

Alas, there will be no s'mores at the reception. In light of this reality, here is how I see myself spending my time between wedding-to-do-stuff the week before:

Stop 1: Fork in the Alley or Fork in the City for fresh s'mores

Stop 2: Polished for mani/pedi

The Registries

A long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away (they're all far, far away), I mentioned our registry. Thanks to suggestions from you readers and others, we were able to build up a decent registry for the wedding. I was feeling pretty good about it. Then, the girls put together a bridal shower and I was reminded that there need to be things on the registry for that, too! Now I feel as though I don't have enough items on the registry! Of course, now that the registry is mostly composed, it makes it a lot easier to thing about other items to add (suggestions still welcome).

So what did we do?

We set up two registries - a gift registry and a charity registry.

The charity registry is through the I Do Foundation. This site makes it incredible easy to find and select your favorite charities, whether they're national or local! We chose seven charities that were important to us and, poof, our registry was done! Easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy. Our charities of choice are:

	RAINN (Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network)
	Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation (CDRF)
	DonorsChoose.org
	National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
	Humane Society of Charlotte
	Childrens Trust Foundation Roanoke Valley Inc
	Petco Foundation (Sadly, the It Gets Better project is not listed and is added to our registry page on its own)

The gift registry is through Alternative Gift Registry. One of the groomsmen used this for his wedding and we really liked what they did with it. The site lets you enter anything you want - text, hyperlinks, etc. - so it's really easy to incorporate items for many different stores, or some that you don't have specifics for. Since a lot of the places we typically shop don't have registry options, this allowed us to incorporate items from those sites in one easy to access place.

Of course, while it's been great for us, it does require a little extra work on the guests' part. They simply can't go to Store A and look us up. I have created online registries at three stores to help keep track of items I found interesting while browsing, so a few folks might get lucky (but there are only a few items on each registry). It's a shame that this site doesn't have an app.

Unfortunately, our biggest problem with our registry is knowing where the stuff will go. We'll be on pins and needles for the next few months wondering whether Douglas' internship will turn into a full time gig. If it does, then we'll be relocating about one to two months before the wedding. Since it's hard to determine what you might need in your own place when you're still living with a roommate, it's been mostly a crap-shoot for us. That's why we've included gift cards on the registry.

So, after adding a few more items for the bridal shower, hopefully the registries will be complete and another thing will be crossed off the list.