Checking Back In....28 Days to Go!!!

I have been a delinquent blogger and I have so many updates to provide. To start, I can't believe we're just 28 days away from tying the knot. I'm not nervous but I would say that we're kind of at that point where we just want to get it over with. And I'm not complaining at all but we're ready to see all of our planning come together. So let's dive right in to the details...

RSVP Numbers
When we sent out our invites we definitely weren't expecting the response that we received. People were very excited to come and celebrate with us. But there have also been some hiccups as well but the good outweighs the bad. In the beginning we decided that we would have a kid friendly wedding, we have both friends and family with children and didn't want them to feel like they had to make a choice between their children and our wedding if they really wanted to attend. So in our final guest count I've broken it down by Adults, Kids under 5 and Kids 6-12, because I wanted to know how many kids needed some additional activities so they won't get restless and throw a tantrum vs. those who are old enough to hold their own. Without further ado, our guest count:

• Sent out 74 invitations
• Invited a total of 152 people (adults and children combined)
• Y - 116 (76%)
• 101 Adults
• 6 Kids 5 & Under
• 9 Kids 6-12
• N - 36 (24%)
• 29 Out-of-Towners
• 7 Local (mostly children being left behind or adults with health issues)

Throughout our time planning this wedding, I quoted all my vendors at 80 guests with a maximum of 90. I can't lie, I almost crapped my pants as the number continued to rise closer and closer to the 100 mark. And everytime another RSVP card came in I secretly crossed my fingers hoping it was a "No". As I updated my excel spreadsheet and refreshed my pivot tables (I sound really nerdy right now, but it works!) I just saw the catering costs increase with each new "yes" we received. I was seriously stressed out for a while because we had far exceeded what we had intended on from the beginning. But now about 3 weeks after receiving the bulk of our responses (there are still stragglers and people we have yet to hear from) I'm not worrying about it anymore. We're blessed to have so many people that want to come to our wedding to support us and celebrate with us. There will be no other time like this in our lives to openly celebrate the commitment we are making to one another, and I'm happy that people want to come and witness it.

DIY Hell
I have a confession...I'm a serial procrastinator. And this wedding is no exception. I created a list of a bunch of projects that I wanted to tackle early on in this process and bookmarked them to come back to. I purchased supplies on my many trips to Michael's but I never really got the energy to start any of them. So here I am literally 1 month away and I'm basically doing parts of projects everynight after work. And trying to carve out time on the weekends to wrap these things up, in between hair and makeup trials, marriage counseling and venue walk throughs. Of course because of the time crunch I've had to get rid of some projects, but they were mostly things that I was on the fence about in the first place. So I think I have a solid list of the things I need to get done, ASAP!

• Finish my cupcake tower which is in progress
• Create tissue paper poms to decorate the dessert bar area
• Design signs for the ceremony and reception space
• Design guestbook cards
• Create our ring bowl
• Kids activity buckets
• Cardbox
• Thank you cards
• Decorate the mason jars that will be used for the floral arrangements
• Memorial candles
• Flower girl wands
• Alot of other paper products (ceremony programs, favor tags, menus, etc)

Where has all the time gone. Thankfully alot of the things above I at least have a design for, I just need to print them out and assemble them. But I'm going to be steadily crossing things off this list and I will probably go down to the wire to get everything done.

How was your final month of planning before the wedding?

Dress Drama Averted

Last week I touched upon the fact that I wasn't sure about my dress. Well, I'm here to tell you that the feelings that I was having last week are now gone. I went to my final fitting on Friday (I know it's super early to be having a final fitting) and I took my mother with me this time. She's been absent from a couple of them due to scheduling and hadn't been able to see the progress of the dress as it was taking shape.

I was very apprehensive about the final product because we had discussed a couple of final tweaks that I wanted to make and I wasn't sure if it would be done to my liking but I wouldn't have any other chances to fix it because again, it was my final fitting. But nevertheless, we arrived and I was antsy and slipped into the gown, walked out and stood in front of the mirror. For the first time, I really liked what I saw. I was truly happy about the dress I was wearing and all the suggestions and little tweaks here and there resulted in something I was excited about.

I think the icing on the cake was the fact that my mother teared up for the first time. I think I was secretly waiting for that reaction the entire time and that was a great confirmation.

I'm going to hold off on pics for now as I get my wedding day look put together. But for reference here's my dress, not in it's final state, but pretty darn close.

I'm Afraid...

Quick Update: Sorry for being MIA for the past month. I've been extremely busy trying to get everything straight for the invitation suite and doing some faux calligraphy on our envelopes, which I will share in a later post. We're this close to sending them out to all of our guests and I can't wait to see how the guestlist shapes up. So stay posted...

In other news, I'm nervous about my dress. I'm afraid that I'm not in love with it...or is it just wedding jitters as we're getting closer and closer to the big day. To recap my dress journey or lack there of...I found the dress at Filene's Basement Running of the Brides, I didn't try on any dresses previous to that adventure but I did look at massive amounts of gowns in magazines. I bought the dress knowing that I wanted to make tweaks to it and I found my ultimate inspiration to help guide the work of my seamstress.

And now that I'm at the point of my final fitting with my seamstress (coming up thursday or friday) I'm not sure that I'm in love. Maybe it's not that I dislike the dress because it does have all the aspects that I was looking for, but maybe it's that I'm more disappointed that I didn't explore all my options through bridal salons to get a better feel for what I wanted. I was very intimidated by the entire idea of the bridal salons but I think I might have made a mistake with just getting the first bargain that came my way.

I'm torn as to what I should do because we're only 73 days away from the wedding. Do I start looking at sample dresses and start over to either confirm my love with my dress or find a new one. Either way I need to decide quickly as time is ticking. I know there are other brides who have found a dress in less time, but is it just nervous jitters or real regret...

Did you have any conflicting feelings over your dress purchase after it was all said and done?

Seriously...Super Padded

This past friday I was able to meet with Mrs. F for my second fitting. The whole 40 minute drive I was a little nervous because when we last left the dress it was all pinned up and I wasn't sure if my inspiration photos and my random but somewhat focused murmurs of details during our first meeting would translate into a dress that I would be actually like. At this point it's too late to find a new one so this is the final frontier. I'm happy to say that the shape of the dress which is the most important thing and the thing that I was most nervous about was just about perfect....But there was one major problem that I'm going to go ahead and rant about, the top of the dress.

Ok. Let me explain, because I don't hate it. I love the sweetheart shape (that was another must have all along) and I actually like the ruched detail...but how can I say this...there is too much space in the top, it's rather airy and I'm not exactly filling it out plus looking down it looks a little Madonna ish with the cone bra and all. I could be exaggerating a bit but my mom is on the same page, so we're both not bonkers here. I mean I don't necessarily have any body image issues but sheesh that sucked a little. Plus, Mrs. F's suggestion was to go and get a "super padded bra" to fill out the top and eliminate the awkward airiness...great. But I'm not sure that's the best solution because I was wearing what I thought was my wedding day strapless bra from Victoria's Secret but obviously it wasn't enough...so I went off and purchased another that promised to take me up 2 cup sizes...and it's definitely "super padded." We'll see how that works at the next fitting... But I finally have pictures of my dress...still a work in progress, take a peek!

Wedding Day Hair Possibilities

Since I've found my shoes, woo hoo! And highly contemplating my veil or hair flower options, one of the other major considerations is...my hair! Getting these thoughts together will really help toward finalizing my complete wedding day look. I've been conjuring up images in my mind of what I want my hair to look like and then of course I did a massive google image search and came up with these:

 

I like the elegant look of a sleek low bun. But I'm also drawn to those which are slightly messy, still in an elegant way, like Jessica Alba above. Particularly for me, since I have some hair challenges in the summer, i.e. slight sweat can bring on frizziness and sometimes extreme puffiness. That could've been slightly dramatic. But I know that with an August wedding and my hair texture and behavior that a combination like that is not suitable to wearing my hair down in any shape or fashion. And besides if I did an all down or half up half down type of style I'd be fiddling with it all day out of nervousness and I would be constantly checking it to make sure that it still looked the right way. So that very brief idea was quickly nixed.

Once I find someone who can do these looks within a reasonable price range (or experiment and test it out myself) I'll be able to determine if my inspiration actually translates into reality.

What kind of look are you going for on your wedding day?

I'm Obsessed with Tessa Kim

After tackling the major last minute to-do of the bridesmaid dress decision, today we're gonna talk veils. Not just any veils Tessa Kim veils. They're beautiful, soft and just great. I put off the thought of having a veil for a while because I just didn't want to put in the time to think about my wedding day look. But as I've started to think more about my hair, figured out my shoes, and purchased some jewelry, there's one obvious thing missing...a veil.

I see many birdcage veils that I think look really cool and beautiful like these:

Sara Gabriel "Wendy"

Sara Gabriel "Marilyn"

But for some reason I can't really envision myself in any of them. I don't think I'd be able to pull off anything like that. Then one day while browsing weddingbee, I saw a lovely veil, this one to be exact.

Tessa Kim - Mini Tulle Birdcage Veil

Then I dug a little deeper and found this one...

Tessa Kim - 18 inch tulle veil

But I still don't think those are quite right for me. The first one has what I like to describe as an elegant edginess. And I did like the second one, but the more I looked at it, it keeps reminding me of a tulle helmet.

I kept browsing through her site and I kept stumbling upon one lovely creation after another. And I must add that they are all very affordable, most under $100. That's another reason I love her and her designs.But then I started thinking, do I want to buy a veil and only wear it once and probably for a maximum of 2 hours the entire day. Or maybe find a pretty hair flower that I can wear all day. Decisions. Decisions. Decisions.

I'm still thinking about what I'll do. But here are my top two veil contenders from Tessa Kim:

Tessa Kim - 11 in tulle birdcage veil

Tessa Kim - Elbow length tulle veil

There's an obvious commonality between them all....tulle. I love it because it provides the softness that I think I'm looking for. And it doesn't have a bunch of sparkle which I like and they're simple.

Like many other things, I have a choice to make. And now I'm on the hunt for hair flowers....first stop Tessa Kim!

It's Final. Combo #1 it is

I'm so grateful to everyone who voted and gave me their unbiased opinions either here on the blog or on the weddingbee boards. Yes, I posted the question there too just because you can't be too sure. Right?? But everyone confirmed my initial thought to have every one of my girls wear a different dress. And it was an overwhelming YES! to the Ultra Mix and Match. So it's final we're going with combo #1.

The official results were:

• 70% Combo 1 - Ultra Mix and Match
• 17% Combo 2 - Semi Traditional 
• 9% Combo 3 -Modern Semi-Matchy
• 4% Combo 4 - Traditional Semi-Matchy

This is such a relief and now we're into the final stretch to get them all ordered and in our hands in time for alterations. Why did I do this to myself and my girls. This could've easily ended up being a major wedding FAIL! Crisis averted...I think. Or will soon find out. I'll keep you posted.

Again, thank you all so much.