We've Got a Place!

The site for the ceremony and reception has been booked!

Thanks to a very helpful person from the Low Budget Bride Live Journal community, I found out about a place that is pretty, reasonably priced, and convenient.

Adam and I will be getting married and receiving our guests at Mrs. Murphy & Sons Irish Bistro on November 01, 2008, at 3:30pm. A buffet dinner reception will follow immediately after.

I love the hardwood floors and the brick walls. That will fit in perfectly with our color scheme. I haven't had a chance to visit the place yet, but I did send Adam out with a long list of questions to ask. Not only did he get them all answered, but he took photos as well.

They're remarkably easy to work with, the price is right, and they have PARKING. A rarity in Chicago, let me tell you.

WHEW. Now that that's out of the way, I can breathe a bit easier. Ceremony site is the major issue. It's a small place, so we're going to have to keep the guest list to a tiny minimum. But it'll be better that way. Way more intimate.

Now I can relax. A little.

Invitations & Stationery

Invitations by Dawn has DISNEY invitations. If I weren't trying to save money and have a low-budget wedding, I'd SO get these:



I mean, how cute, right?

But... Helen did offer to rustle up some samples for me, so of course, that will be my first choice. I'm looking forward to seeing what designs she comes up with for me. In the meantime, I am having a lot of fun looking at all the different catalogs and Web sites, and ordering free samples. You'd better believe I'm ordering a free sample of the Mickey Mouse one. :)

My second choice is getting invitations from Ann's Bridal Bargains. They have nice, simple invitations for as little as $35 for 100. I totally don't need that many, I'll probably only need to order 50, which is $30 or something low like that. Their most expensive is about $85 for 100, which isn't bad at all. Most places charge at least $130 for that many.

So far, my favorite catalog has been Invitations by Dawn; they have an amazing selection of invites, many that would perfectly match the theme of the wedding, but unfortunately, they have the price tag to go with it.

This is a list of things I absolutely need, stationery-wise:
- invitations (reception info will be printed on the invitation)
- response cards/envelopes
- "save the date" cards
- "thank you" cards (but those will not be custom ordered; I plan to get a plain box from Target or something!)

I wonder if I could get inexpensive "save the date" cards from Vista Print. IBD has magnets, which is a very charming idea. Expensive, but charming.

Thinking of invitations also gets me thinking of the verses. Verse This seems like a wonderful resource for all sorts of verses for all sorts of ceremonies. As you should know, this is my second marriage, but Adam's first. I have a little boy who is going to be part of the ceremony somehow. I need to communicate our personalities, the ceremony/reception information, and Aidan's involvement in 14 or fewer lines, plus a few extra for corner copy. I'm thinking this site will be helpful. They have loads of ideas.

Cake

Last night, Tami came over with a cake that served two purposes. One was to congratulate me on the engagement.

The other reason was so I could taste the first wedding cake recipe!

Tami had spent hours making this cake for me. She used fresh lemons, whole milk, and two sticks of butter. The icing is buttercream and also homemade.

IT WAS SO FREAKING YUMMY OMGWOWWOWYES!

The flavor was perfect. It wasn't too sweet, but it had so much flavor and it was so tasty. I gobbled a small piece down in seconds, and wanted a second bigger piece but I was so full I couldn't finish it. My mouth was very happy.

THEN she showed me a drawing of what the design will look like:

Could she have done any better? This is freakin' perfect.
I showed Adam the pix this morning on email, and he approves.
Tami's doing our cake, YAY!!!!

And the cool thing? She left some of the cake here for me. Guess what I'm having for dessert tonight? Yummm.

Adam's so cute. He asked me "If you get all the big stuff done now, aren't you worried that you'll have nothing to do later?" Oh dear. He has no idea. As long as one is planning a wedding, there is always something to do. But getting the venue secured ASAP will give me a bit of breathing room. Trust me, this bride WANTS to get the big stuff out of the way, then she can have more fun with all the little details.

Details

Adam and I want to have an autumn-themed wedding, so I've been scouring the Web looking for fun details and accents and decorations. I found the best deals and cutest things at Oriental Trading Company. Not only are their details adorable, but the prices are great too.

Here are a few things I'm considering:

The leaves around the candles would be autumn leaves, of course.

Adam's not too keen on the scarecrows. I am not terribly attached to them so if he really doesn't want them, that's OK. But they'd be cute. :)

Orange daisies. Yes, and yes. :) Rosa had them in her wedding and they were beautiful. I don't even want a bouquet; I'll be happy to carry a single flower.

I also want kind of a funky-looking cake. I lifted this picture from The Cake Blog because I thought the design was so cute and original. Now, as this bakery is based in San Jose, CA, I don't think I'll be able to get that actual baker to do my cake, but maybe Tami can pull off something similar, and in my colors, of course. An orange cake would be so awesome!

There is so much to think about. On the one hand, I want the wedding day to be here NOW so I can be married to Adam that much sooner, but then again, I know I have a LOT of work to do over the next 400 or so days, so it's GOOD that it's not time yet.

Still, I hope I don't Go Bridal. Hahaha.

Overwhelmed

I won't be able to buy a dress for at least five or six months, and most of them are so expensive that I'll never be able to afford them, but that's not stopping me from perusing the sites and checking out the styles. I'm finding myself gravitating toward a particular style, but there aren't a lot of them out there. There are so many designers, so many styles, so many dresses...it's crazy! So, I've been kind of randomly going around, just saving .jpgs of anything that strikes my fancy. I've also learned a nifty trick to help me stay organized. I name the files this way: designerstylenumber.jpg. That way, when I want to find a certain dress again, I don't have to go through random picture files of dresses and go "Um... I don't remember where I found this!"

Today I went to the library and checked out a couple of planning books:

• Going Bridal: How to Get Married Without Losing Your Mind
• Wonderful Wedding for Cost-Conscious Couples

I think they'll be fun reads. The covers are neat, at any rate.

Adam and I are waffling on the date. Halloween would be a fun day, and easy to remember, but it's a Friday, and with most of our guests coming in from out of town, that could prove challenging. November 1st is a good day too. I like both days, and I told him that it's up to him. Hopefully we'll have a finalized date for you guys soon!

TheKnotDotCom

I have taken the plunge and signed up at The Knot.
Who needs sleep? Seriously.
*stares glaze-eyed at all the cool stuff*
Wow.

Hi, folks!

I'm on here, too!

There's a part of me that wants to go with the whole "all the groom has to do is show up" mentality, but I'll just be using that for the smaller details (I'll leave exact size of the candles, etc, for others to geek on :) ). As for the big picture, I'm very, very excited about having a great autumn wedding in Chicago, and I can't WAIT to be married to Ronni!

Intro & Welcome

I've been toying with the idea of a wedding site for a few days now. I decided to go ahead and make one because a large number of our guests will be out-of-towners and this would be a cool way to keep those Internet-savvy folks in the loop. Check back often for updates, pictures, musings, thoughts, randomness, and all things wedding.



I cannot wait to marry Adam. The mere thought of spending the rest of my life with him makes me very happy, giddy almost! I could list dozens of reasons why he's so amazing, but I won't do it in this post. Keep checking back though. :)

Right now, we have a tentative date of Halloween 2008 in mind, and I have a skeletal guest list going. My friend Tami offered to do the cake. You know what that means? Lots and lots of tastings. Lots and lots. :) We've also got Jen Hathy on board to do the photos. She's the one who took the photo in the little "about us" blurb and the one in the header, and the one just above this paragraph. I want the theme to be autumn harvest with a few cute Halloweeny things thrown in and there. And CANDY! :)

I'm really excited, and I'll post as often as I can. At the moment, there is a cat on my lap demanding attention, plus I'm a bit hungry. I'm gonna take off for now. Cheers!