TODOs!

I use the Knot to help me keep track of everything I need to get done before the wedding because their checklist seems to be pretty complete. Some of the things I don't really need, but others are useful. In general, the Knot lists all the items out with little checkboxes so you can mark them as complete. As it gets a little closer to the date, they add exclamation points so you know they're more urgent. But now... the exclamation points are gone and in their place:
This little symbol must mean things are really getting urgent! Oh dear! So much to do and so little time! Fortunately, of the 21 items with the little clock icon next to them, 7 of them are regarding groom and groomsmen attire, and I'm not too concerned about that. I have a date with Seth, his Best Man, and Seth's sister to go shopping on the 23rd, so I intend to get whatever we need then.

Other items on the list: hack out menu items - I'm not concerned yet because Seth's Mom is making everything; book rehearsal dinner site - not concerned because we're going to do takeout; make or buy favors - I just need to buy one more thing and then I can start making favors, but I have until the end of September to get these completed; begin fittings - I can't do this until my dress is in which won't be until September.

Semi-Productive Weekend

I got home Thursday night to a pleasant surprise! A package had arrived! Inside the package was a couple different things for our centerpieces!!! I had ordered multiples of things in order to set up different centerpieces and then decide which I liked the best. Our centerpieces are basically a ripoff of Heather's - I hope she doesn't mind! I bought two different sized bowls, mirrors, and rocks. It was clear the bigger bowl was just too big and didn't look right on the mirrors, so I'm going to return that, but now I need to buy four more of the smaller bowls. But bonus - I set up the example centerpiece on our dining room table and when Seth saw it, he really liked it! Yay!

So Friday, my friend came over, and we hooked up the new ink and printed out invitations! Just doing that took forever because my current computer doesn't have Microsoft Office and when I tried printing things with Open Office, it ended up looking a little blurry. So I had to hook up the old computer and try again with Microsoft Office (still a little blurry, but better, and I guess as good as it's going to be). After that, I was sick of invitations, so I stopped there.

On Sunday, I got out my invites again and cut them all up so they're ready to go. Now I need to cut out the backings (metallic blue), glue everything together, and attach to the pocket folds (metallic dark blue). Hopefully by the time I'm done, my postage will have arrived (should be soon) and I can send them out! My goal is to have them sent out by August 8th, though if I can get them sent out by August 3rd, that'd be even better.

Over the weekend, my MoH worked on invitations for my bridal shower! I'm so excited! But I'm also feeling stressed because I haven't given people gift ideas yet. Seth and I are fore-going the registry (don't ask), so now we have to get parents and friends a list without being all "get me this." I'm hoping I can give my parents and Seth's parents a list and then my MoH a list and they can distribute to any/all who ask.

TODO: Experiment with your beauty routine

So according to the Knot, one of the things I'm supposed to do (starting last month) is experiment with my beauty routine. I don't really have a beauty routine besides washing my face in the shower, but thinking about the wedding makes me think about wanting to be pretty. As you all know, I recently went on a makeup shopping spree and bought up a bunch of stuff for making myself all purty. As we know, that basically failed (sort of), but one of the things that go alone with makeup is cleaning the face! So I wrote down some advice from Makeup Geek and off to Walmart I went! I was on a search for three things: a daily facial wash, a moisturizer for night, and an exfoliating scrub.

First thing I went after was the daily facial wash. Now... I've never been a huge clean freak when it comes to my face. I usually don't wear makeup (big mistake on my part), so I tend not to feel the need to wash my face at night. Maybe a quick rinse, but I don't actually own any facial wash. Even in the shower, I tend to just use my regular body soap (probably not wise). In general, I have fairly clear skin, if a little blotchy, so I haven't felt the need to have any of this stuff. But lately... well, let's just say I've been worrying. And noticing blemishes. And panicking in general that I won't look good at the wedding. So I'm trying this facial wash (so far used once last night) and hoping for the best!

Next up in the moisturizer for use at night. As people know, I recently bought a tinted moisturizer for using before putting on my makeup and I hate it. It looks all cakey when it's on, which is totally not how a moisturizer should be. It's more like a bad foundation! I was able to get it to look decent once by mixing it with my facial primer, but then I'm not really sure it's even doing what it's supposed to. The next time I go to Walmart, I'm planning on buying a regular non-expensive moisturizer for use under my makeup, but until then, I probably won't be using moisturizer all that much. But anyway... I wanted something for night, especially since I tend to have dry skin. This stuff is is for using at night, so I figured it'd be good to try. So far used once (last night) and hoping it'll help with the dry skin.

Last, but certainly not least, is this St. Ives Apricot Scrub. The purpose of this stuff is to cleanse and exfoliate. I'm hoping this helps with the dry skin issue as well - at least it should get rid of some of the dry skin, right? It smells nice and says its for sensitive skin, so hopefully it'll do me some good. I don't actually know if my skin is sensitive, but I figured getting the sensitive skin stuff is better than not and won't do me any more harm than any other wash, right? Who knows really, but I'm hoping this will help. Also used once (in the shower this morning) and hoping to notice an improvement. So far the only thing I've noticed is my skin is dry (uck!). I think I desperately need a good moisturizer for all-day use, but I'm hoping at least by the time the wedding comes around, my skin is clean, clear, and under control!

Seating

So one of the things I've been thinking about lately is seating. Since we've rented a tent and tables, obviously we'll be having a sit down dinner, even though it'll be buffet style. To keep with the informality of the event, I wasn't going to assign people to tables, but having thought about it a little bit more, I think I have to.

The thing is, we're having about 10 friends and 17 family members, then the wedding party and their significant others, the Justice of the Peace, and one newborn, for a total of 35 people. That's 34 seats and we have five tables. So basically, I assume we'll have 6 to 8 people per table and the wedding party's significant others can sit with the wedding party.

But then I got to thinking... what will happen if we just let it be a free-for-all? Will we have an issue where the whole wedding party can't actually sit together? What if we just designate a table for the wedding party? Then will we have an issue were family doesn't end up as close to the wedding party as friends. Don't get me wrong, I love our friends, but ideally, family will sit at the closest tables to the wedding party with friends potentially being further. And what about seats? My parents and I decided to save money by renting 20 chairs and we'll be supplying 18 of our own. But our own chairs will be a lot more comfortable than the rented chairs and we want to make sure grandparents (and potentially parents) get the nice chairs. How do we make sure that happens if after the ceremony the wedding party and family is taking pictures while friends get to go pick their seats first.

So to avoid that dilema, I've decided to assign tables. Not seats, but tables for sure. The only issue with that is... who sits with who? My family is small enough (7 if my brother brings a guest) that I can put them all at one table, but Seth's parents are divorced and probably don't want to sit together. Plus there are 10 of them and that would be pretty crowded. So now I have to separate Seth's Mom & co. from Seth's Dad & co. But where does his sister go? Now I have to decide which parent she sits with, or put her with friends, which would be wierd. And now that my family has one table and Seth's family has two, there's only one table left for friends. But there are 10 friends! I don't want to crowd them into one table. So now I'm thinking some of the friends will have to sit with some of Seth's family!!! Is that weird?

Here's my current thoughts:

Gmail Tasks

I'm seriously loving Google's new Task portion of Gmail. I believe they had Tasks before, but now I can add them, change them, view them while I'm checking my regular e-mail. It's super helpful and I need all the help I can get right now. With only 75 days until the wedding, I'm starting to feel a little bit stressed. There's so much to do and really not a lot of time to do it. Especially when you consider that the best days to do things are the weekend. I only have 20 weekend days left. That's really only 10 weekends. Subtract 1 for the Rehearsal Dinner and... okay, now I'm really stressed.

But Google's Task in Gmail has started to make me feel a little better. I've added all the major tasks I could thing of plus when they should be due. Then I added minor tasks like, when I need to start things by, like when I need to start making invitations by (next weekend) and when I need to buy supplies for favors (also next weekend). I'm hoping this will help me keep track of things, especially since I tend to keep Gmail open all day at work, so my Tasks will constantly be staring me in the face.Main things that are left: determine location and times of Rehearsal Dinner, look at and purchase suits for the boys, determine location and date of honeymoon and then book, compile wedding invitations and send out, make wedding favors. I think these will be the most crucial, time-consuming tasks (okay, figuring out where the Rehearsal Dinner will be probably won't be that bad, but it's something I probably should do soon).

Dresses, Cakes, Rings!

Okay, I'm finally updating! Sorry it's taken me so long but I've been busy busy busy! So what's been going on? I'll tell you!

So as you know, I bought my wedding dress on Saturday, June 13th. So the next step was getting my Maid of Honor her dress. We wanted to make sure we did it earlier rather than later, because we were worried about it coming in on time. So on Friday, June 26th, we decided to go out and get some shopping done. We really only went to two places, but my MoH tried on lots of dresses! The first place was Marry & Tux and although they had a very nice selection, the dresses were a bit pricey and the sales-woman told us we'd have to rush order dresses to get them on time which meant adding like $50 to the cost, which we really didn't want to do.

So we decided to bail on Marry & Tux and see if we could find anything better/cheaper at David's Bridal. After trying on numerous dresses, we found one!! My MoH really liked it and it came in a navy, which works for me! Since I'm only having one bridesmaid, I didn't have to worry about coordinating dresses among many girls, so I decided that my MoH could get whatever she wanted. The only restrictions were: tea-length and blue. Since the dress she found came in navy, it worked perfectly! It also was cheaper than any of the dresses at Marry & Tux and would only take 6 weeks to get in. Below are front and back (in black):
So next up was cake-tasting! My parents had scheduled a cake-tasting session for Sunday, June 28th at 3:15, so off we went! The guy at Madeleine's is so friendly! He gave us six cakes to taste and all were fairly delicious. The only ones I really remember were the chocolate, which wasn't as moist as I would have liked, and the lemon with raspberry filling, which was delicious! I really wanted both a chocolate and other flavors at the wedding and was pretty set on not having two separate cakes, so two tier was the way to go. After spending much time debating options, Seth and I agreed on a two tier cake, one tier being lemon with raspberry filling, the other being chocolate with raspberry filling. We were originally going to do the lemon tier with a plain buttercream frosting and the chocolate tier with a chocolate buttercream frosting, but I have since found a picture that I just love. I'm hoping the cake will look like this:
Next up: Rentals! See? I really have been busy! On Wednesday, July 1st, I hooked up again with my parents after work to go to Special Events of New England to see about renting a tent, tables, chairs, linens, plates, glassware, etc. The guy at the showroom was willing to stay late and meet with us, and he showed us some of the options and pricing. We ended up booking them! We got a 20' x 30' tent with lighting, five tables, five tablecloths, 20 plates (we're going to mix white and multi-colored fiesta wear that my mom has), 20 chairs (between my parents and Seth and I, we have 18 chairs, so 20 more is all we need), 40 dinner plates, 40 dessert plates, 40 water goblets, 40 wine glasses, and other stuff I can't think of right now. The cool thing is that these people will set up between Tuesday and Thursday before the event and take down on Sunday or Monday. This is good because we won't have to worry about them showing up to set up on Friday before, which will probably be the busiest, most stressful day ever already.

So then I had a couple weekends off to relax (4th of July, camping with Seth's sister on the 10th-12th), and then it was back to planning. I really wanted to get set in stone with the Rehearsal Dinner would be, if not necessarily where we'd be eating and such, so after a round of e-mails between my parents and Seth's parents and the JP, we've decided to have the Rehearsal Dinner the Saturday before (Sept. 26th) instead of the Friday before. This allows Seth's Mom to spend Friday cooking up a storm (did I mention she's making all of our food??) and my Mom and I to spend Friday cleaning and setting up!

Then the next thing I needed to do was... flowers! I've been worried about being able to get the flowers I want (because October's not usually when weddings are), so I finally asked for the name of my friend's Florist and scheduled an appointment. We met up on Wednesday, July 15th to discuss my options! I pretty much already knew what I wanted for my bouquet and centerpieces because I'm stealing from Heather, but I wasn't sure what to do from my MoH bouquet (although I think that will also be like Heather's bridesmaids). The florist, Pat, was a delight and very helpful. I think I'll be getting a mix of pink and orange roses, and my MoH will have a mix of roses and gerbera daisies. For centerpieces, I'm just getting gerbera daisies, just like Heather. For boutineires, I'm getting one pink rose and one orange and the boys can fight over which they want. I just need to get back to Pat on if I'm doing corsages for the Moms or boutineires for the Dads. Both my Mom and Seth's Mom said they didn't care, so we'll probably just go with no on that.
So then it was the weekend and it was time to really get some stuff done. Actually, I didn't get all that much done, but I still felt it was productive. On Saturday, Seth and I decided (okay, I decided to drag Seth with me) to hit a jewelry store and look for... wedding rings! So exciting! So we went to Jared's and looked at their selection. First we looked at rings for me, then we tried to find matching for Seth! And by matching, I mean they're made of the same material. Mine has diamonds and Seth's is plain, but they look really well together. Below is essentially what they look like, although mine doesn't look quite like that. Real pictures to come after wedding.

Updates Needed

Lots have happened since I last posted including: bridesmaid dress purchased, tents/tables/dishes/glassware rented, food conversation occurred, cake tasting happened, save-the-dates sent, and more! Updates and pictures to come!