Please Don't Stop the Music

Music at the wedding reception is crucial.  I want to make sure everyone has a good time and that everyone enjoys the music played, but at the same time, I probably could not tell you any of the 10 top songs on the Pop charts right now and there is a pretty good chance that I won't even like them.  That being said, I need a DJ who doesn't suck, who adheres to my strong desire NOT to hear the chicken dance, and who understands that if there is not a considerable amount of Country played -- my husband (?!?!?) will be cranky.  I also don't want to be paying out the wazoo for a DJ.  Am I asking for too much?  Probably.

Brandon has offered to DJ our wedding with his iPod.  I do not even know where to begin to explain how horrible this idea is.  Yea, I know I said I wanted to cut costs and this would do it, but let's be serious? This is a HORRIBLE idea.  You wouldn't hear any songs you liked, unless Brandon has them on his iPod which he probably doesn't.  Also, when Brandon gets drunk, he has this music pattern he goes through.  First he plays an assortment of country songs from the 90s, you know reliving his childhood, then he plays sappy love songs because he knows he is in trouble because I am cranky with how drunk he is.  Then when he realizes this isn't going to save his skin, he changes the song constantly and does not listen to more than maybe 45 seconds to a minute of a song -- and then he plays Pantera, not exactly wedding reception material if you ask me.  That Ladies and Gentleman is why Brandon will not be our wedding DJ.

On theknot.com we found a DJ service (Good Vibrations DJs) that seems to offer really amazing prices, has a wonderful song list and is willing to get any songs that they do not already have that you would like to hear.  They also ask you to select the songs you want to hear and will work with you to ensure that you never have to hear anything you don't want to on your special day.  You mean I can go to a wedding without having to hear the chicken dance or the electric slide? How delightful.  You can bet your bippy I have emailed them to check their availability and see when we can meet with them.  They are my first round draft pick and I am hoping I don't have to keep looking from here. 

Because Brandon and I are so picky when it comes to music, we needed to find a way to cater to everyone who is invited to the wedding.  Obviously people are going to want to hear the aforementioned top-ten songs that we have never heard before along with a litany of songs we don't know so we need to find a way to make this happen.  On our reply cards, we are going to have everyone write down a few songs that they would like to hear at the reception.  We figure this way we can compile a list for the DJ of songs that are of interest to our guests.  Don't worry Fat Pat -- we will make sure that plenty of Taylor Swift is played just for you.  I think I might be more interested to see what songs people want to hear than see who is actually attending the wedding itself...

I can't wait to hear back from the DJ and have them tell me everything is perfect, they'd love to do my wedding for free and I will be the most beautiful bride in the history of weddings... What? DJ services don't usually do that?  Oh well, a girl can dream.  I guess if all else fails, Brandon can be our DJ.

You mean we get presents for that?

Last night Brandon and I learned that apparently, people give you presents at your engagement party.  Who knew?!  Aunt Donna suggested that we set up our wedding registry as soon as possible and put it up on our wedding website.  You mean you want me to run around Bed, Bath and Beyond dragging Brandon kicking and screaming behind me scanning the bar code on things I really want but will probably never use but obviously have to have? Count me in.  Who knew getting married had so many perks!?

I went onto the world wide web to learn more about this "wedding registry" thing.  As it turns out, I don't even have to go to the store.  Awesome.  I don't even have to get dressed.  Yep, you read that correctly.  I can sit at home in my pajamas while Brandon plays The Show and set up our entire wedding registry.  Awesome? Yes.  While dragging him down the aisles at Bed, Bath and Beyond would be a rather enjoyable afternoon, I'd like to still have a fiance when the day ends.

Now the big question: What the hell do we put on this thing?  Why was this not on the SATs?  And can I call a lifeline?  Obviously, we want to have a wide range of practical things on there and we want to have a wide price range of things on there, but what do we actually want on there?  Finally, we decided the best idea would be to go through the house, room by room and think of the things we would need... and a few things that obviously we just wanted, but would never spend money on ourselves, like a fondue set.  Shh, don't tell Brandon. :)

So far we are playing it safe and have the basics -- kitchen utensils, serving dishes, towels, sheets, picture frames, etc.  We have agreed that we will go to Bed, Bath and Beyond one weekend and add to the list all of things we can't think of right now but know we will want/need.  Brandon once saw a Heineken mini-kegerator at Bed, Bath and Beyond and he thinks it would make a wonderful addition to the registry, but they do not carry it on the website.  That, ladies and gentleman, is the only reason he agreed to go to the store and walk around with me and my new barcode scanning friend.

Obviously, I think that putting together our registry will be much easier once we buy a house.  (Yea, I know, duh.)  Then we will really be able to tell all of the things that we actually need to start our life together, but until then we can only wing it and play the game "could we use _____?"  Generally, the answer to that question is "of course" since we are excited and over zealous about how many cookie sheets we will actually really need.  I guess instead of worrying about what else to put on the registry, I should really start worrying about where the hell we're going to put this stuff when it starts rolling in... Yikes.

Borderline Obsession

According to the Princeton Dictionary the word "obsessed" means:

• haunted: having or showing excessive or compulsive concern with something
• influenced or controlled by a powerful force such as a strong emotion

That being said, I am obsessed with my wedding.  However, I am terrified of becoming one of those girls who all she does is talk about her wedding and wedding colors and save-the-dates and vendors and dresses and cake samples and flowers and tuxedos and... you get the point, especially since the wedding is over a year and a half away. 

In my defense, I have been waiting quite a long time for this ring!  Brandon said once he moved to Maryland, we would look at rings and get engaged and live happily ever after... this didn't happen, well the looking at rings and getting engaged part didn't happen.  I let it go since he had just started a new job and had just moved away from home.  After his first pay check I bought up the topic again, he said he didn't have the money for a ring.  I said I understood and so he went out and bought a play station.  Then a little over a month goes by and I bring up the topic one more time and again he said he was sorry but he just didn't have the money for a ring, and then literally the next day he went out and bought a brand new pickup truck.  Do you see where I am going with this?  I was patient and kind and now five months later, I am excited that I finally got him to buckle down and commit!  It's a small victory to some, but a big one to me!  I mean come on, I'M GETTING MARRIED!!!

I watch enough WE tv to know that some women are nuts about their wedding and not in the way that I am nuts about my wedding.  I get it, you're engaged and you want to get married ASAP, but what' s the rush? I am excited about having a long engagement and plenty of time to soak up the attention and show off my ring and soak up the fun of being engaged while buying the necessities and saving a ton of money along the way.  That being said, when I find great deals I want to shout it from the rooftop and I want everyone and their brother to be excited about it too.... but then, I am that girl. You know, the aforementioned annoying one that only talks about her wedding. Ugh.  What a pickle.

I mean -- but seriously, let's be honest. How early is too early to look at dresses when David's Bridal is doing no interest for 12 months and I can pay my dress off over time? My head is spinning at the idea of having a dress though and I am pretty sure Brandon would pull the plug on wedding planning if I got a dress this far out and so I would have to hide the dress and where can I really hide a freakin wedding dress? Then what happens if my weight fluctuates between now and then? You're right, I could just get a bigger size and have it taken in... I thought about that, but there is still the hiding it dilemma and the looking crazy part too...

Speaking of crazy -- I think I need to start having like legit sanity checks on a daily basis.  So from here on out, I think once a day (maybe more depending on how many times I look at different wedding things) I am going to have Hadley check my crazy level.  I think today it is particularly high.

Ugh. What a day.

Bride on a Budget

Fact: the average cost of a wedding in the DC-Metro area ranges from $65k-122K.

Seriously? My wedding budget isn't even a third of that lower end number and I have made it my goal to be at least $2,500 under budget.  I have found so many ways to cut costs and save money that I am impressing even myself.  It doesn't hurt that I have an amazing family and amazing friends that are also making my life incredibly easy.

The budget application on theknot.com is wonderful.  I highly recommend it to anyone who is planning a wedding sans wedding planner/Hadley.  I put in our budget number and it populates different fields (i.e. reception, ceremony, beauty and attire, flowers and decor, etc.) to let you know how much you should be allotting based on your budget for those different things.  I printed this out the other night and as Brandon and I plan and get things, I have written down (and plan to write down) the cost on the back of the sheet.  I think seeing how much we're saving here and there is going to make this challenge more fun.

To keep on my money saving high, Brandon's Aunt Patti has made an incredibly generous offer to us.  Aunt Patti paints glasses, serving dishes, murals, etc. and is extremely talented.  She has offered to do our wedding favors.  I was so touched by the offer.  Of course, Brandon and I plan to accept. She wants to paint our wedding flowers (hydrangeas) on champagne flutes for our guests.  We are hoping that we can tap into Aunt Patti's creative side for help on another project (that will inevitably save us a ton of money).  Brandon's mom came up with a really creative, really budget friendly idea for the reception centerpieces.  She suggested we get tall hurricane vases and have Aunt Patti paint them with our flowers on it, then put big ivory candles in them.  I mean, as much as I love love love flowers (especially hydrangeas) it is much more cost effective to have candle centerpieces.  And really, I still get my flowers. :)

I also signed up for David's Bridal sale announcements which I didn't realize would be SO beneficial.  I mean, you don't have to be on the list to get the deals, but unless you're on the website every day, you're not going to see these things!  Anyways, last night I was able to buy a $40 guest book for $9.75.  Incredible.  Chalk up that $30 savings.  At first when I told Brandon I got the guest book, he looked at me like I was crazy; then when I told him how much I saved, all of a sudden it was ok to buy things for the wedding.  I told him that if we buy things along to way and just put them away, then we will save money by buying things on sale and not see the costs all at once.  I would much rather spread out costs over the course of 19 months, then be buying everything in a daze when the wedding is 19 weeks away.  There is a method to the madness.

Brandon and I also spent probably three hours one night looking at Save-the-Date notices.  Can I just say that stationery is ridiculously overpriced? Don't get me wrong, I love stationery and have some with my name on it, but that doesn't change the fact that it is expensive.  FineStationary had Save-the-Dates for $30. How wonderful! Oh, you only get 10 for that price... how not so wonderful.  After hours of searching the world wide web for decently priced Save-the-Dates that were either in our wedding colors or that weren't terribly ugly, Brandon came up with a genius idea (he has his moments).  Why don't we just make our own?  We looked up prices for postcards and found that it would be the most cost effective way (besides an e-vite) that would let all of our friends and family know our wedding date.  I already have a Picnik account, so the artsy part wasn't going to be hard to put together and I could use our wedding colors.  The boy is a genius.  If anyone is looking to create and send postcards, I highly recommend zazzle.com.  They have great prices, you can pick the number you want so you don't have to buy in bulk, and the prices are so reasonable. 150 postcards for $97. Love them.

Another money saving friend Brandon and I have found is Michael's Arts & Crafts.  While the cost of ink may not going to be my friend -- it is still MUCH less expensive to buy our invitations through them and print them ourselves.  Even if I had to buy 4 ink cartridges, which is not even close to being a possibility, I would still be saving money by doing that and printing my own.  I am going to look into what the cost would be to have Staples do the printing.  Michael's also had Thank You cards on sale the other day and we were able to get like 120 thank you cards for $18.  Hello savings :)

I told you -- this money saving thing is going to become an obsession... now if only I could get this feel good high on money saving to transfer to my money spending on clothes&shoes so I didn't buy as much, Brandon would be a much happier man. :)

Pool, Capri, Mocha, Truffle... what happened to blue and brown?

So our wedding colors are without a doubt going to be light blue and brown -- I love the way they look together and they aren't girly (a definite bonus for Brandon).  I really like those colors for a fall wedding, the blue is bright and happy since we're just coming out of summer and I like the way the brown compliments it.  And those colors are perfect with hydrangeas! Anyways, when I looked on the David's Bridal website, there is not a simple blue and a simple brown. I know, you are probably wondering to yourself "Tori, why go David's Bridal when there are so many wedding boutiques in the city?" The answer is quite simple, David's Bridal is geared towards me -- the girl who does not see spending a ton of money on a dress that she is going to wear once and will almost most definitely spill something on... and by something, I definitely mean red wine -- regardless of whether I personally drink the wine or someone within a ten foot radius of me is drinking the wine, it will end up on my dress. I digress...

So I went onto the DB (David's Bridal) website and was bombarded with shades of blue and shades of brown and, for the record, capri and pool are definitely the same color blue regardless of what they say.  I spent a good amount of time clicking back and forth between two pages trying to really tell the difference between the two colors.  I even made Brandon look to see if maybe, just maybe, he knew something I didn't.  (Upon Brandon's suggestion, I took the easy way out and let Hadley pick.  She went with capri.)  We decided on truffle brown, probably because I was hungry, but it's really a wonderful color.

So now I am looking at bridesmaids dresses, which for the record, is a crazy task.  I have made one easy decision on the topic though, which is to go with short dresses for the bridal party as opposed to long dresses because in September the average high temperature in Washington, DC is 80 so long dresses may be hot.  Here is where it gets crazy, I am weird about even numbers and symmetry and the fact that we plan to have 5 people each in our wedding parties is going to make this a process and a half for me. Why you may ask? Well, because I am just about certifiably insane.

Warning: If you didn't think I was crazy before, you definitely will upon reading this.  I don't like the idea of having strapless dresses across the board because some people don't feel comfortable in a strapless for one reason or another, some people need more support, people don't want to be constantly pulling them up and adjusting them, etc. and honestly, some people just don't wear a strapless dress well (sorry, but it's true), but to be difficult there is a strapless dress from DB that I really like (pictured here in truffle).  So then, how do I pick who gets to wear it? Do I poll my bridesmaids after giving my MOH first choice, then place the remaining bridesmaids in the other dress and then pattern them dress 1, dress 2, dress 1, etc. to make it symmetrical? So then you know, if two people want it, they can't stand next to each other because then there won't be any symmetry in my bridesmaids order. Like I said before, I am weird.  Then, to make it more complicated, if I add in the option of wearing blue or brown, my head explodes. I envy the girls who can have everyone wearing a different dress in a different shade of their primary wedding color... However, I think they are crazy.  Where is the symmetry in that?!?

Then the next issue rolls into the picture... which other dress do I want?  Obviously, because I am crazy and like everything to match, I have to have a dress that is extremely close in design to the strapless dress so that it all looks like a cohesive group, but I found two... that's right, two dresses that are similar enough to the strapless that it looks like they go together.  Why wouldn't life be easy and there only be one dress that is similar? I will tell you why... because I am crazy and I must have made the big guy angry somewhere along the way.  It will probably come down to eeny-meeny-miny-mo... or Hadley making another decision for me :) Oh to be normal...

PS - If you're wondering, the answer is yes. It does bother me that there is no symmetry to the pictures.  I too wish that there were two strapless dresses I was interested in to balance out the page.

And I thought we had come a long way...

 

We're engaged!

So now we have to start planning the wedding!  We have started a little bit, but there is still so much to do!  We have booked the church and the reception hall (pictures to come!) and have decided on colors (blue and brown) and now we are picking our wedding parties and planning engagement parties!  Obviously, I don't think we can have enough celebrations about us!

Brandon has asked his brother, Evan, to be his best man -- which no one should be too surprised about.  I asked my best friend, Hadley, who came up with the idea of this blog.  I don't know that I could do this whole wedding thing without her helping me!  Brandon hates doing anything wedding related!  Brandon has asked his cousin, Kyle and two of his good friends from college, Chipp and Greg to be groomsmen.  I am asking my two college roommates, Danielle and Dee and my older sister, Michelle. I am also going to ask Brandon's cousin Brittany.  We are having five people each, which seems a little crazy but there are so many important people in our lives that it is so hard to pick!  Brandon still hasn't made a final choice! We have asked my cousin, Cameron, to my the ring bearer and Brandon's cousin Mia to be the flower girl.  We could not have picked two better kids for the job.  They are both so stinkin cute!

We are going to be celebrating our engagement with family down the shore Memorial day weekend and I am really excited about that.  We want a bbq type event since Brandon and I really enjoy them.  We would much rather sit on the back deck and drink beers and eat burgers and dogs, then go out to dinner at a restaurant.  We always have felt that way, maybe because we are simple people or maybe because we're cheap -- either way, nothing can beat grilling out during the summer.  There is no better way to kick off the summer than to celebrate our engagement with burgers and dogs!

I thought getting engaged was coming a long way in our relationship, turns out between now and wedding we have a lot to do and a long way to go!