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?

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!

Finalizing Our Wedsite

After complaining about how I didn't want to tackle this area of the wedding process, I've finally given in and made some good progress.

In terms of the website, here are the different sections we've decided to include. It's rather basic but I hope to provide the information that people will be looking for leading up to the big day.

• Our Story - How we met, blah blah blah
• Meet the Wedding Party - to introduce the girls and guys that will be accompanying us and include a short bio and pic
• Registry Info - self explanatory
• Map and Directions - I get lost all the time and in the DMV there is a lot of construction going on and this will help them navigate the area and find our ceremony and reception sites
• Hotel Accommodations - We've secured a reasonably priced room block in Old Town Alexandria, VA so we'll provide that information along with a couple other convenient hotels in the area that we'll be blocking off
• Things to Do - Fun things to do while they're here in town if they so choose to venture out and about
• FAQs - Some general answers to questions that I think guests will be constantly asking us
• RSVP Information - If they want to RSVP online I think I'll provide that option as well as our general reply by date
• Contact Information - emails and phone numbers for both of us

Are there any sections or pages that I'm forgetting?

Save the Dates: A Prelude

I'm so excited to announce that our save the dates are designed and printed. We initially wanted to go with magnets but quickly realized that we didn't want to pay for them. Plus as a couple of my bridesmaids so wisely stated...people can use their own magnets to stick it to the fridge if they wanna.

So instead, we ordered postcards from Vistaprint, despite my apprehension in terms of overall quality. And luckily they turned out great. Plus, there was a major perk...they were absolutely free and all I had to do was pay for shipping. And to top it off they came with simple white envelopes all for free that we'll use to mail them out. I don't think we could've gotten a better deal than that.

I've written about my penny-pinching drama with wondering why I hired a planner but each day they are proving their overall value more and more. They created the design for the postcard and designed some wonderful wrap-around labels to spice up the plain white envelope. I couldn't be happier. Here's the pic we decided to go with...

I will reveal the final design and cost breakdown next week. But I'm so happy with how they turned out and we're on schedule with sending them out to everyone. Now I just have to track down a couple addresses...

What kind of save the date did you decide to send your guests.

Sailing Away

It was sort of a no brainer when we started talking about our honeymoon destination. We pretty much knew that we would be taking a cruise on one of Royal Caribbean's new line of ships from the Oasis Class, either the Oasis or the Allure. These ships are basically small cities roaming the seas, complete with a neighborhoods like Central Park and the Boardwalk just to name a few.

Mr. B and I had the wonderful opportunity of going with my side of the family on a 7 day cruise over the Thanksgiving holiday in 2009. We were with my rather large family of about 20+ aunts, uncles, cousins and my grandparents of course. And we had a blast! When the trip was over we knew we definitely wanted to go again in the future. And there is no better time to take our second cruise together than as husband and wife.

I've been on about 4 cruises, all of them Royal Caribbean and we never considered any other cruiseline. I get some major perks from being a past cruiser and I've loved my experience with their company. We're going to take an Eastern Caribbean itinerary which makes the following port stops:

• Fort Lauderdale, Florida
• Nassau, Bahamas
• Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas
• Philipsburg, St. Maarten

We haven't picked an actual sail date but we hope to go within 3 weeks of our actual wedding date, of course the sooner the better.

Was picking your honeymoon destination a no brainer?

We've Hit the 6 Month Mark!

Let me start by saying...wow, where does the time go! I feel like it was just yesterday when we settled on a wedding date. But we've been planning this wedding full-on since August 2010, which has given us a lot of time to get things booked and scheduled. And now that most of the big ticket vendors have been locked in, it's time to get to the small stuff...the details.

But before I start in on the next chapter of our wedding planning frenzy, here's a peek into what we've accomplished most recently:

• Booked our caterer, mmm!
• Ordered our Save the Dates
• Booked our DJ
• Officially booked our photog (we had locked him in, informally, but now we've have our contract in and signed)
• Picked our honeymoon destination
• Set a date for our wedding shower
• Scheduled our first bridesmaid dress fitting

I love writing this stuff out because the small (and big) accomplishments really seem to get lost in the shuffle sometimes. But every now and again, this reminds me that we're definitely making progress.

The Road to My Dream Dress

As some of you already know I found my dress at the Running of the Brides event here in DC last summer, if you didn't you can read about here. I like my dress but when I bought it I knew there were some things that I would like to change about it, namely the neckline and tweak the shape a bit. To me they're minor things but I have an alterations appointment tonight and I guess she'll let me know what's minor and what's major including costs.

I'm sure you want to see what my dress currently looks like, well...

Feeling a Little Guilty

Source

I've been going back and forth on whether to post this or not but here it goes...

I know there's someone out there who has felt guilty about a wedding related purchase. Well for me, I'm feeling guilty about hiring a full-service wedding planning team. I started out planning the wedding solo (with Mr.B in tow of course), gathering vendor options, inspiration galore and creating my gameplan and timeline. Then we met with a wedding planning duo for the purposes of just DOC services. They sounded too good to be true and we ended hiring them full-time, we couldn't pass up this deal and great opportunity, plus it would help ease some of my planning related stress.

And in the couple months since, I've had great design discussions and they have gotten us great vendors to choose from. Not to mention they've helped us bring to life some of the wonderful details I've dreamed of early on. Yet, from time to time I find myself feeling a little bad for choosing to go with a planner. I guess I'm feeling sort of like a DIY wedding failure. Browsing various blogs and seeing how other women have courageously planned and put together fabulous weddings on similarly tight budgets without the help of a planner and sometimes not even a DOC makes me think that I took the easy way out. At the beginning going at it alone, I felt a sense a pride in that I was doing everything myself. But now not so much. And especially with such a tight budget sometimes I feel like other brides at times in that I could have definitely used that money towards something else.

And don't get me wrong, I feel like our planning team has done a fabulous job and they have been worth their investment thus far. I guess there's just some internal struggles going on here that I'll have o work on reconciling.

Have you felt guilty about a major wedding related purchase?

Let's Eat...Success!

Leading up to my tasting I have been so nervous and even had a crazy nightmare. Well, I'm here to report the tasting was uber successful!

Ok...one part of the dream was slightly correct, the caterer's office was located in some random industrial park type location, but other than that, everything else about the dream was totally fictional and looking back on it just plain crazy! I was a little disappointed when we scheduled the tasting appointment because I knew that Mr. B wouldn't be able to attend as he is still away in Philly. But thankfully I had some wonderful people there with me to discuss the food and provide additional suggestions and opinions. I brought along my father, my youngest bridesmaid and my FMIL. I'm so grateful for their attendance. Afterward we had a good idea of some of the tweaks and substitutions that we could make to ensure that the menu is well received by a majority of the guests.

Without further ado, here's the food:
*Sorry guys, I was too busy eating and enjoying the food thus the picture quality suffered a bit.

Hor D'ouevres (clockwise from top left) - Beef Empanadas, Shrimp and Grits, Bourbon BBQ Chicken Skewers

Entree Choice #1 - Buttermilk Fried Chicken w/ White Gravy and Garlic Mashed Potatoes and Steamed Veggies in a Tarragon Butter

Entree Choice #2 - Pan Seared Salmon with Lemon Butter Sauce w/Garlic Mashed Potatoes

Quick Review:

• Hor D'ouevres - LOVED 'EM ALL! I wouldn't change a thing...ok maybe a little more cheese in the grits but who doesn't like a little more cheese. Otherwise, they were all so tasty and right on point, finger lickin good, lol.
  
  
• Entree #1 - This was also fantastic, I think the only thing we will change will be the vegetable selection. I like the veggie choice that we selected, but after speaking with my other fellow tasters, we concluded that the majority of guests probably wouldn't eat that particular veggie selection. So we have identified one possible substitution.
  
  
• Entree #2 - The salmon was cooked perfectly and had the best crispy crust on the top. And the lemon butter sauce was a perfect complement. We just need to find another option for a second starch so that people won't be stuck with just mashed potatoes.

My First Wedding Dream...I Mean Nightmare

It's actually not the first but it's the most realistic and tangible one yet. As I've mentioned before, I have my first tasting today with our number one catering choice. I've been so nervous lately about how this is going to turn out. And last night just reinforced those nervous feelings.

The dream starts out as I'm driving to the caterers office and once I get there I realize were in some really crappy strip mall type of place with the cheesy fluorescent 7-eleven style light-up words. I gasp and wonder OMG what have I gotten myself into. I bring the rest of my tasting team in and we get started. The setting was horrific, were sitting in a cafeteria style room with the tables and benches from 3rd grade. And when they finally bring the food out, it's lukewarm and it looks and tastes like cafeteria food...bland, no type of presentation whatsoever and just plain nasty! I leave really pissed off because it was huge waste of time and now were back to square one in the search for a caterer.

I'm confident that my experience today will be nothing like the one from my dream but I can't help but think of how my thoughts have manifested into this grand dreamland scenario.

Tasting update coming tomorrow!

Brr! It's Cold Outside

We are fast approaching our deadline for sending out our save the dates and we would both like to have a photo std card to send out, something like these. The only problem is, we have ZERO photos that we both like which are actually usable. But thankfully, my cousin is coming to our rescue and doing an impromptu e-session. She is our go to family event photog, and well, she's just great. I'm just nervous about the weather. I'm the type of person who wears a scarf in the summer in the office because the AC is on too high, so obviously I don't do very well in the winter. And to top it off, in the past month or so we've gotten hit with snow, freezing rain and blustery winds that have made me shed a tear (I can't make this stuff up). So I'm crossing my fingers that none of the crazy weather will make an appearance and I'm hoping that it will just get above 35 degrees.

I'm gonna suck it up, bundle up (in something cute of course) and hopefully produce some beautiful, natural looking e-pics.

Were So Lucky!

* FYI from here on out I'll be referring to my FI as Mr. B, more aliases to come :)

I received a call from my aunt a couple weeks ago. She wanted to know if she could organize and throw the bridal shower. She has out done herself at previous family events time and time again so how could I say no. I was so excited because I know it we will have a great time. But during our quick chat she asked me something I hadn't even thought of...do you want to include Mr. B and his family in the shower as well? I told her I would think about it and talk to him about it as well. I called my mom to ask her opinion and she had already spoken to my aunt and they were on the same page. I ran it past Mr. B and he didn't oppose it, so with that, we'll be having a co-ed wedding shower!

I'm so excited. Even though it's many months away I'm just happy for the possibilities. It will be one of the first times that both of our immediate families get together and meet up. We will be able to celebrate us as a couple along with all of our loved ones and enjoy the day together and eat great food.

I had never thought about having a "wedding shower" instead of traditional bridal shower but it's a great option for us and I can't wait to see the great family pics that will come out of this event.

My Dreaded To-do: The Website

I know it has to be done...but I really don't feel like working on this wedding website...uggh. I just haven't been that excited about it. But we have made a little headway...we chose the website provider mywedding.com and the design...see

I had to remove some of the personal info but you get the picture. For a while, I was looking for designs that matched my color scheme thinking that it would flow so nicely. But it was difficult to find a design that I liked that blended well with what I had going on. So I gave up that idea and just went with a design that we both liked.

And in terms of selecting mywedding.com, it was mostly because of the long list of design options that were available along with the different features that they have for me to use. I doubt that I will be using all of them because based on the type of guests that I have coming , I highly doubt that they will 1) remember that I have a website and 2) if they do remember, they're probably easily impressed so I don't need anything fancy.

The part that I'm dreading is actually adding the content but since we'll be sending out our save the dates shortly which will include our website name I need to get on the ball and make some updates. I'm thinking that I'm just going to keep it simple and straightforward. I'll give the people the information that will be helpful, provide a sneak peek into the wedding, add some FAQ's, yadda, yadda, yadda.

As you can see, this is one thing I'm not very enthusiastic about...yet. That could change though.

What's the one thing (or 2) that you aren't (or weren't) too excited about tackling?

My First Wedding Project...The Bridal Party Ask

My FI had a pretty easy time figuring our who would be his bestman and groomsmen. I on the other hand, had a little difficulty. We both knew that we didn't want a huge wedding party so we kept it to four on each side. So after some more indecision (I'll get into that in a later post), I had my 4 girls and I was so excited to ask them. For some of them it would be a no brainer that they would be in my bridal party and for others it would be a surprise. But for each of them I wanted to do something simple and sweet to formally ask them to join me on my big day. So I decided to create little invitations for each girl.

Here's the final product (please excuse the picture quality, I'll do better next time), MOH got a different design and the remaining 3 bridesmaids received this design:

Front

The front of the card features a design motif I found on the Wedding Chicks blog here and here and fell in love with them so I didn't have any real design work to do that piece (I chose 2 different designs, but you could always work with just one). They even let you customize the design to your choice of colors and specific wording. I love it!

Back

The back features a simple quote from Aretha Franklin that I found while browsing my Glamour mag one month. It really sums up how I feel about each of the friendships and bonds I have with by girls.

Inside

The inside of the card featured a personal note to each bridesmaid which was tweaked a little for each person but the overall message was this (which was adapted or taken from a notecard that a woman at Papersource introduced me to one day):

"There are few moments in life when you get to pick those few favorite people to stand in line next to and face the world"

Supplies:

• Cardstock of your choice - I used an ivory cardstock purchased from Michael's
• Envelopes - I used small white one's approximately 3x5 that I had laying around the house
• Paper trimmer - to each notecard to size
• Powerpoint - this was my program of choice but you can use whatever you're comfortable with
• Stamps of course

I designed them in powerpoint so I was able to print them double-sided (on a regular inkjet printer) so I had to manually feed the paper but they turned out nicely. These were an easy project to tackle but I still ran into some roadblocks along the way, but nothing that has discouraged me from growing my list of prospective DIY projects.

I look forward to sharing more of my projects as they get underway so stay tuned.

Just Talk it Out

I had been having a tough time lately thinking about a wedding issue with one of my wedding vendors, catch up on the details here. But after a quick and much needed conversation last week with said vendor, I feel as though a boulder has been lifted from my shoulders. I hadn't realized how much this situation was bothering me and affecting my overall mood. It had been consuming my thoughts for weeks now. But from this situation I have learned one very important thing about dealing with vendors which is actually common sense but common sense kinda went right out the window for me in this situation.

They're wedding professionals NOT mind readers
And in this case, I thought since they had worked with many brides before me they sort of automatically knew what my expectations were...wrong! In any relationship whether business or personal it's important to communicate and sometimes over communicate. I had expectations of how our business relationship should flow that I hadn't expressed and this ultimately led to me being disappointed with the services that I was receiving. But you know what they say about assuming...so yeah...don't. So with any of your wedding vendors have a quick chat about what your expectations are when dealing with them. But before you have this conversation think about a couple of things:

1. What is your preferred communication style (phone, email, video chat, etc)? You could be bombarded with calls when you prefer email exchanges.
2. How involved do you want to be in the overall process? Are you giving them free reign and you'll just show up or do you want to be involved every step of the way.
3. What are your priorities? Help them stay focused on what you're placing value on for your day.

Considering All Floral Alternatives

By now you know that were planning a wedding on a tight budget and what puts dents in wedding budgets...flowers! I've never been a huge flower fan. Some may think it's a nice romantic gesture but to me it's just money thrown out the window because they'll just die a few days later. I'd rather have something more tangible that will last which I can remember for years to come. But with planning a wedding that simple logic went right out the window. I now find myself searching for floral inspiration and getting lost in beautiful weddings that feature the coveted peony (cha-ching!!), every brides dream flower.

But what do you do when you have a meager flower budget? I don't want to rule out fresh flowers all together but I don't want to waste money on a bunch of botanical decor that will be wilted and dead the next day.

So I've been thinking about ways to mix it up a bit. Inexpensive yet, luxe looking fresh flowers with  paper flowers, fabric flowers, or fake flowers (thinking of that still makes me cringe a little) that can be arranged by yours truly. I've been stalking blogs and collecting inspiration pics of all these alternative flowers and I'm starting to think that if I can do it right and take my time, they could actually turn out alright and add some charm and help me save some money in the process.

Another reason that I've been thinking about going the DIY route in terms  flowers is because of the bouquet. I could save it for years to come until I get sick of looking at it and it will be a constant reminder of our wedding day. Take a look at this beauty...

Rock N Roll Bride

Cupcakes or Traditional Cake...I'll Take Both

We are lovers of all things dessert but I think cupcakes are our number one fave. And when I started thinking about what our cake was going to look like, I somehow started to gravitate towards pictures like these:

Kitchen Musings

Source

Style Me Pretty

When I first mentioned the idea to my mom, she was not that ecstatic, being the wedding traditionalist that she is. Of course, in her mind we should be having a 4 tiered wedding cake. And there's nothing wrong with that because I happen to like to the look of these as well:

Style Me Pretty

Project Wedding

The Sweetest Occasion

But after really thinking and getting back to our core preferences I think we'll be going with a hybrid of the two. A muti-tiered stand full of delicious homemade cupcakes (did I mention his mom is a great baker, she just doesn't know that I want her to help me make all these cupcakes yet, shhh) with a simple 3 layered 6 inch cake at the very top for us to cut and savor on the big day. I haven't decided whether I want to outsource the top tier or go DIY all the way.

I think this will save us a ton of money and bring a lot of fun and personality to the wedding. Now I have to start thinking about cupcake flavors and decorations...yumm!

I'm Not Crazy After All

I've had some serious wedding thoughts running through this mind lately. I'm second guessing one of my major vendor choices and I'm having a serious internal conflict over how I should proceed. I can't go into the details of the situation but in pretty generic terms I'm not really feeling one of my vendors based on some recent situations that have transpired which has made me a little less than convinced that they can pull off my big day properly.

I'm going to be honest, alot of the second guessing has been attributed to me not wanting to be perceived as a "bridezilla." So I did the best thing that I could've done...I called my MOH...and should have done it earlier. I needed an objective opinion here. I explained the details of the situation and I'm so happy I talked to her. She firmly reassured me that NO, YOU'RE NOT CRAZY! The things that I'm expecting in this situation are not bridezilla demands but reasonable demands that you would ask of any regular merchant nevermind a wedding vendor.

This snafu has made me realize that all the "newness" (yep, I said it) of everything involved in planning this wedding has made me second guess my everyday instincts when I shouldn't be. It's so great to have a support system and sounding board during this stressful time, I'm truly grateful.

Have you had a situation that has made you second guess yourself in your planning adventures?

Top Tips for Filene's ROTB Success

After writing about my experience with Running of the Brides (ROTB) here in DC, I thought it might be helpful to offer some tips to those of you out there thinking to tackle this event in your city. But before I get into the tips here's a link to the 2011 event schedule in case you were wondering.

{1} Keep It Simple Stupid - small teams are just as efficient as large ones and in my case a team of two was able to get the job done just fine.

{2} Have a Game Plan - No matter how large or small your team is having a plan of attack will keep everyone organized and on the same page. At the outset, my mom and I decided it would be better for us to split up to cover more area. We also decided on a rendezvous point at an obvious spot in the back area of the store where it appeared to be a little less crowded, plus there were full length mirrors available nearby as well, a great plus.

{3} Don't be Picky - the gowns are in plastic bags so they may not look like much of anything hanging on the rack when you first see them but scoop up anything that looks remotely like something you would want to try on. And in terms of sizes, bridal sizes are not street sizes, so don't get caught up in the number, plus alterations are your friend.

{4} But Know Your Style - It helps when going into the experience to know whether or not you like ballgowns or prefer mermaid style dresses but don't worry if you have no clue either. It can help you narrow down your choices and limit the selections to save some precious time in your hunt for the perfect dress. For example, if you know you don't want a cream colored dress, stay away from 'em. But continue to keep tip #3 in mind at all times.

{5} Stay on Your Toes - there are dresses lying everywhere, some of which are still being considered by other brides and others which just haven't been put back on the racks yet. So always keep an eye out for any dress that may appeal to you, but make sure you ask someone in the dress' vicinity if there is a bride still considering it, if not, take it away and try it on. It just might be the one.

{6} Dress for the Occasion - Wear something that fits closely to the body that you're also comfortable with others seeing as well. There are dressing rooms available but it's so much quicker to try on dresses out in the open. Believe me you don't want to be one of those chicks out there in your grannie panty bloomers for everyone to see. I decided to wear a pair of leggings and a strapless bra under a tunic style shirt that was easy to get on and off without revealing too much skin.

{7} Pack Light - Do yourself a favor and leave the big handbags and totes at home. Between carrying around 3-5 dresses at once and hunting for others, a large bag doesn't really fit into the equation. If I had to it all over again, I would have brought a simple wristlet to carry my essentials and a digital camera.

{8} Don't Overlook Future Alterations - For the budget brides, when choosing your dress think about how you want it to look when you're  walking down the aisle. If your vision requires a laundry list of alterations it might not be as cost effective as you think, buying a $599 dress that requires almost $400 in major alterations might not be such a bargain after all.

In the end, the biggest tip I could give would be to keep an open mind during the experience because it will go a long way.

Please share your experiences and tips if you've ever done ROTB, I'd love to see what you have to share. And I promise the actual photo of the dress is still on the way, I haven't forgotten.

I've Been Slacking...

Big time.

I'm referring to my wedding planning or lack there of. I started out very gung ho and got right into the knitty gritty of the major details because for the most part I was scared that everyone would be booked and I would be the sad bride with all the left over vendors that no one wants. But now that I have some of the big things out of the way and I've hired a wedding planning team, I've put planning on the back burner. To be honest it was relaxing not to have to think about wedding budgets and color schemes and bridesmaid dresses. I was just consuming myself with this wedding and I needed a mental break.

But now as we jump into the new year I think it's about time for me to get back into the game and start to iron out some details. So my next big things to accomplish are:

• Selecting a caterer
• Designing and finalizing our Save the Dates
• Finalizing our wedding website...aargh I really don't feel like tackling this one
• Start collecting addresses and contact info for our guests...another pain the arse