The Wedding Blog

Photography:
This is the most exciting part of the update: Stefanie's going to do our photography as a wedding present!! (Nelle, you know her from the Bob blog). This works out beautifully, as she was apparently minorly stressing about getting us a wedding present, and I was majorly stressing about finding a photographer that wouldn't require a small fortune. Plus, she was coming to the wedding anyway and knows a bunch of people from online, so it's all in the family, which is precisely what I wanted. YAY!

Further, since we'll save so much on the photos, I think I'll finally take the Ellens' advice and talk to Don this morning about having someone else make the cakes.

Invitations:

This one is not so good - in fact, it's reaching the "critical" stage. They're technically supposed to go out eight weeks prior, and that's Monday. Though I've seen a few etiquette sites that say six-to-eight, so I think I'm going to hold to that. I've got the primary invites designed and ready to go, but I now need to do a secondary invite for "cocktails only." Here's the deal: a bunch of my theater friends have informed me that I can open the guest list to everybody and still make my budget by inviting them for the ceremony and drinks after the dinner. I wondered if that would be considered rude, but took a poll on the main blog, and was reassured that my friends totally understand the whole budget crunch given Don's large family, and would rather do the drinking option. So, good news: I can invite everyone I want. Bad news: I've got a whole slew of additional addresses to find (plus, Don's mom is still adding people on her side). I've got a second invitation to design. I also have to do the layout on the maps (I've already pulled the images) and design a response card. Finally, I might need to order more envelopes. Fortunately, they're lightning fast with the deliver.

Other breaks with etiquette:

- I am not going to use the "don't abbreviate anything" approach that the wedding sites insist on. The post office will kill me if I write (for example) "123 Four Thousand Three Hundred and Twenty-Ninth Street Southeast".
- I am also not going to use the "Mr. and Mrs. John Q. Smith" format also insisted upon. Women don't lose their first name when they get married, dammit.
- I am going to put my phone number and email address on the invite as an alternate way to RSVP. The idea is to make it easier to respond, not folks.
- I am not going to write the *&^%$ things out by hand. It's called mail merge, Emily. Deal with it. I will have to do the inner pochettes by hand, but that's only 'cause they won't fit in the printer.
- As you can see by the earlier mock-up, my parent's names will be on the invite even thought they're dead. This is apparently a no-no. Tough.

While I'm thinking about it, could everyone email me their addresses, so I've at least got them? Thanks!!!!

Ceremony:
We've met with Father Rich, and now have a ceremony time: 3:00. We're going to do pics beforehand, so I'm thinking 1:00 or so for that? If I recall correctly, it takes a while to get that done.

We now need to come up with:

People to bring in the Gifts, two ushers, and altar servers.
Readings from the Old Testament, Gospel, and New Testament.
A responsoral psalm
An Alleluia verse to be sung before the Gospel.
Vows.
Blessing of the Rings.
Prayer for the Couple.
Prayer of the Faithful.
Any songs to be sung.
Prayer over the gifts.
Nuptial Blessing.
Prayer after communion.
Final blessing.

Fortunately, song-wise, we're allowed to do anything so long as it's God-centered. We're not boxed into the hymnal. Miscellanea: We're allowed to throw stuff, and to decorate however we want. Father suggests no aisle runner, and not a lot of decoration. It never looks good and it costs a ton. Mass is at 5:30, so we do need to be out pretty quick afterward. Side note: there's also an opening prayer we could choose, but he quite frankly admitted that in all probability he'll be nervous and thinking about other things and will likely just say the first one regardless, so unless we have a strong preference for one of the others we should choose that one. So far as further pre-Cana stuff goes - we only have to meet one more time, to review our FOCCUS test answers. It's pretty much an informal thing, he knows us so well from my RCIA classes that it seems like it's a formality.

Costuming:
Don's still working on picking out the tuxes. Interestingly, it appears that if we go with the bow tie it's a "retro" choice. Most use regular ties these days. I find that odd. But Don wants the bow tie regardless of whether they're "out," and I don't have a problem with that. We're thinking of vests in gold for the groomsmen and silver for Don, but not shiny, gaudy things, more a textured antique:
We're thinking black tuxes, possibly tails for Don, and perhaps black tie instead of trying to match the vest. It's just getting Don to commit to one thing that's the problem . . . (Yep, I'm leaving that wide open).

Also, we're having a little trouble in choosing his ring, for much the same reason. We're currently debating the pros and cons of white gold vs. tungsten. I'm determined to get this done in the next few days, since it takes six weeks to order if we go with the tungsten.

As far as my stuff goes, we're down to shoes. I've found the ones I want:
However, there doesn't seem to be an "add to cart" button on the page. I've contacted both the vendors and the webmaster to see what's up with that.

Registration:
Working on it. Don is very thorough in choosing things, so we only got about 1/4 of the way through Bed Bath and Beyond in about three hours. I'll try to go faster.

Decorations:
Doing pretty well here: I've got most of the theater poster centerpiece cards printed out, and a bunch put onto the backing. I need more tape runner before I can go farther. Ribbon seems okay - and I bought most of it at 50% off. So while I'm thinking about changing the blue, what I've bought only cost about ten bucks so it's no big deal.

Don's promised to work on the big poster next week. Barby said I could borrow ICCT's stanchion. However, I'm going to ditch the curtains idea. While it was cool, and we have plenty of time to make a procenium-type header, I can't think we'd have enough time to install it the morning of the wedding. Basically, the rough timeline I've got so far says we can get into the hotel to decorate at 10:00, and have to be at Riverside and dressed by 1:00. That doesn't seem conducive to elaborate decorations. I think I'll stick with the centerpieces, one poster and the stanchion (how do you spell that anyway) outside the door, a garland I've just seen at Ben Franklin on the front of the head table, ribbon wherever it looks good, and a couple of vases of fake flowers on the cake table.

I've already bought unity candle-holders and a guest book, so we're good there.

Transportation:
I've done nothing with this yet. Desparately need to book limo by next weekend.

Honeymoon:
Again, we've debated the relative merits of different places too long. Time to book.

Miscellanea:
Other things I need to purchase/make/do: Unity candles, sh*t for people to throw at us, programs - including a responsoral cheat sheet for non-Catholics, gift card box. Anybody got a six pence I can borrow for my shoe? I've got to contact Scott and Michelle so we can get the music deposit in. Oh, and the karaoke machine from Aero comes with 29 CD's so I need to book it and get a song list to see if I want to purchase additional stuff online. I also need to figure out what to do with Molly (the puppy) while we're gone. Can anyone think of anything glaringly obvious I'm missing?