Accommodations

Brandon & I have arranged for accommodations for the few of you who will be coming from out of town and for those of you who would rather not drive home after the wedding.  We are planning to arrange for some sort of shuttle service from the wedding to the hotel as well.  (PLEASE don't drink & drive!!!)

We have booked a block of 19 rooms at the Crowne Plaza in Southbury, CT.  <-- That link will take you to the page specific to our block of rooms so you can book right online if you so desire.  If you'd rather book over the phone, the number is 203.598.7600.  (You can call that number with any related questions, too, because I won't be able to answer them!)  You need to book your room no later than October 10th to get the special rate.

Our wedding reception is scheduled until midnight, so at this point, we are planning on having somewhat of an after-party.  The bar at the hotel will stay open for us until 2am.

Come play!

Save-The-Dates

Save the dates are out!  Which means this page is in serious need of updating.



More later.......

The Dress

I went into the whole dress shopping thing with a pretty solid idea of what I wanted.  Nothing with sparklies, no beaded accents, just a simple sheath dress.  Something like this Nicole Miller gown:

Very simple, but beautiful and feminine (to me, anyway).  

I'm so glad that I tried on dresses of all styles, even the big "cake frosting" dresses, because I ended up falling in love with something very different from that sheath dress (but not a "cake frosting" dress).

The dress that I fell in love with was $1000.  Some of you may say, "That's really not bad for a wedding gown," to which I will reply, "It's a f***ing dress!  That I am only going to wear once!" while shaking my hands emphatically.  The only thing that I own that is worth more than that gown is my car.  Oh, and now, my engagement ring.  (Which is worth much more than my P.O.S. car, incidentally.)  Nothing else I own is worth anywhere near $1000.

My point is, I was having a very hard time finding a way to justify spending $1000 on a bunch of white fabric.  So, I Googled the style number of the dress and found Ann Bridal Gowns.  This company is one of many companies that make copies of designer dresses for a fraction of the designer price. 

My designer wedding gown copy cost $300.  Which is still much more than I would ever want to spend on a bunch of white fabric that I am going to wear once, but, wow, what a deal!  

The gown was delivered about a month and a half after I ordered it.  It seemed to have been shipped from China.  (It's not all "Engrish" on the website, but there were what appeared to be Chinese characters on the packaging.)  When the company was contacted with questions via email, they got back to me in a timely fashion.

The moral of the story for all future brides is this:  1)  Try on dresses of all different styles, even styles you wouldn't expect to like, and take note of the style number of Thee Dress so you can shop around.  2)  Don't be afraid of a copy!  Having the designer label in my dress would have cost me another $700. 

Take that, Wedding Industry!

Gift Registry (Part 2)

The gift registry is DONE!


Krista (my almost-sister-in-law) helped me finish up "shopping" the other night, I made appropriate edits yesterday, and I just signed up for a "Honeyfund" type thing (but on a different site).


Here are the registries (click the names to view the registries online or go to Target or Bed, Bath & Beyond stores near you to search for our registry):

• Target
• Bed, Bath & Beyond
• Deposit A Gift

**Phew!**

Meetings

Brandon & I had two very productive wedding meetings this week!  We are so fortunate to have such a wealth of creative people in our lives.

On Tuesday we met with our still photographers and filmmakers.  I am blown away by how open they are to our crazy ideas and, further, how they took those crazy ideas and just ran with them!  If everything goes as planned, all of our guests are going to be attending a wedding unlike most.  

Saturday (yesterday) we met with our "Wedding Production Team."  This team is comprised of some members of our wedding party as well as select friends and family who want to help organize and plan the wedding.  Again, it's amazing how receptive everyone is to our offbeat ideas!  Everyone seems really excited about the theme of the wedding and our vision for the whole event!

So today I feel a little less overwhelmed.  I still have 7,548,221,364 things to do (or so it feels like--and instead, I'm blogging) but I don't feel like so much of it is on my shoulders anymore.  

**exhale**

Gift Registry

Wow.  Why is this so difficult?!?!?  

Obstacles:  

• I've been on my own since I was 17, so I have quite a bit of what I need already.
• Because we are adults, when we need something new, we buy it.
• Brandon & I live in an itty-bitty apartment that can barely contain us (and our massive movie collection), never mind any more household goods.

However, I am expected to register for wedding gifts.  I get it and I certainly appreciate that loved ones are so eager to buy gifts for Brandon and I, but, wow.  It sure is one of the most difficult parts of the wedding planning I've encountered so far.  I was talking to a friend the other day and mentioned, with a little bit of frustration, that I had to work on my bridal registry.  He replied, "Doesn't that mean pick what presents you want?"  Well, yes, yes it does.  But, where do I start?  What do I want?  (And let's not even get into the guilt associated with picking out things for other people to buy for me...)

Brandon and I have decided to register at Target and Bed, Bath & Beyond.  (I'd love to also do IKEA, but they don't even have the option.)  Also, we've thought about doing something like Honeyfund where we can register for cash towards our honeymoon, down payment on a house, etc.  Is that tacky?

So, I have been perusing these stores and websites.  Probably the most difficult thing of all has been picking out new dishes.  We finally settled on a Corelle set after deciding it didn't matter if they were "cheap", they're damn near unbreakable!  But then, do I register for all of the matching accessories?  Or is that overkill?  Do I really want that print all over the kitchen?  Or should I just find something that tastefully coordinates?  

And what about the other rooms?  What color schemes should we go with for each room?  (How lucky that we only have a bedroom, bathroom, living room and kitchen.)

At this point, I am never going to let these registries go "live" because I am going to be in  a perpetual state of editing them.  

The Theme

I worked for a few years at a CD/DVD store that Brandon would frequent.  We both have a great love of movies and would often talk about the latest films or other movies that merited watching.  (In short, we are both movie snobs.)  There was no romance in this.  In fact I clearly remember thinking of Brandon as "a pretty cool kid (yes, kid) who I get to talk to about movies."  (Except for that time he left a huge stack of movies that he didn't buy in the Rap CD section.  He was not "a pretty cool kid" then.)

This all changed after we were reunited at a New Year's Eve party thrown by a mutual friend (The lovely Dani Hagstrand!).  We exchanged numbers at the party and agreed to "hang out" soon.  A week later, we went on our first date (well, we didn't know at the time that it was a date.  We thought were just "hanging out") and we've been together ever since!

Now, going back to that first paragraph:  We LOVE movies!  We own far too many, we talk about them daily, we find enjoyment in checking out trailers for upcoming films online.  We've both even worked on a handful of film sets.  It's pretty obvious, we absolutely have to have a movie-themed wedding. 

A sort of secondary theme will be "vintage."  (No, I'm not talking about wine.)

Vintage -adj.  1. of lasting interest and importance; venerable; classic  2. representing the high quality of a past time

That's the kind of vintage I mean.

I love throwing themed parties and, well, weddings are basically gigantic parties.  I'm pretty excited to find ways to incorporate both themes into our wedding.  I've got some ideas but am open to more!  Perhaps I'll share some of those ideas in the future.  At the moment, I'm hesitant to share too much because I don't want to spoil all of the fun!  One thing I will share is that we really want to get married in a movie theater.  We are having trouble finding one that works for us both in looks and price.  Any help or advice in this department is welcome!

The colors for our wedding are chocolate brown (which, to my dismay, has all of a sudden become very trendy) and ice blue with touches of red.

So, yeah, planning a wedding a ton of work.  It's nerve wracking, frustrating and overwhelming (just like all of the books said it would be!).  But I'm having a lot of fun putting together the theme!