Before I left for college each year at the crack of dawn (when my dad insisted on leaving only to hit horrendous morning rush hour traffic in Hartford, Connecticut), Paul would come over and figure out how best to position my belongings in my parents’ SUV so that everything I needed to take with me would fit–and so my dad could kind of see out the back window as he drove. And somehow, Paul would always manage to get my refrigerator, desktop computer, mountains of clothes, and little school supplies into the trunk. I knew he was a Tetris champ, but I didn’t realize he could apply that talent in the real world.

Making the seating chart for the wedding requires a similar skill set. Now that we have all of our RSVPs, except for two, but they had a baby days ago so we’re cutting them a little slack, it’s time for me to put the puzzle together: There are refrigerators (families of five that need to stay together), mountains of clothes (two full tables’ worth of people that should be seated near each other), and little school supplies (couples who won’t know anyone else there). Finding a way they all fit together has been trying, especially with requests like, “I just ran into Joe on the street! Hadn’t seen him in a while. Can I sit with him at your wedding?”

Despite that, I think I’ve managed to work it out. Some tables just came together on their own, like Paul’s 11 work friends, my mom’s nine work friends, and Paul’s dad’s family of 12. Others were not as logical.

One table is going to mix the five people from my dad’s family that are coming with the five people from my maternal grandfather’s family that are coming. Not ideal since those sets of families probably haven’t seen each other since my parents’ wedding 26 years ago, but they’ll have their respective families with them, so it’ll be fine.

I had heard that there should be a singles table where everyone sitting there is dateless so they don’t have to go far to mingle. I’m all for hooking up friends, but I know I’d feel like a misfit if I discovered I had been seated only with those who are also unattached. So I split ‘em up and mixed in some couples, but still considered potential matches and placed ‘em at the same tables.

For other tables, I’ve conjured up tenuous links in my head to justify placing them together. For instance, one of my college a cappella friend’s fiance’s is best friends with another one of my college friends, who went to the same high school as one of my junior high school friends, whose dad is the same profession as my elementary school friend’s fiance. That works, right?

And if not, it’ll just be more encouragement for them to get up and dance.

Countdown to the wedding: 47 days

I’m pretty good at putting together an outfit, and when it comes to makeup, I’m almost a pro. But if I try to do anything with my hair beyond putting it in a ponytail, I get a terrible mental block. I don’t know if it’s my problem or my hair’s problem. I am fairly uncoordinated when it comes to juggling brushes, blow driers, and various styling products. On the other hand, my hair is a special kind of difficult: thin strands but lots of it, so it falls flat at the first sign of humidity. It’s to the point where if I could choose one type of professional to have near me at all times, I’d take the hairdresser faster than you can say “cowlick.”

Luckily, I will not be styling my own hair for the wedding. Instead, I will be in the competent hands of Amber Lopez of DiModa Salon in San Jose, who has been expertly coiffing the women in my family since they moved to Los Gatos. She and a few of the other stylists in the salon will be working on my entire bridal party the day of the wedding.

I have a trial run with Amber a few days after Aaron and I move back (gulp), during which Amber will give me a last-minute cut and color and help me figure out what on earth to do with the stuff on top of my head. My veil is extremely long and will likely be placed pretty far forward, so that’s something to keep in mind. I also think we will need to choose a style that creates a fair amount of volume near the top of my hairline, the area which most often tends to fall flat and make my face look rounder that it actually is. My mom bought a bunch of little do-dads that we can play around with, so we’ll also need to decide if we are going to use those.

The image I’ve included with this post is pretty close to what I imagine the style will ultimately look like. That being said, I trust Amber completely, and if she told me that the best thing to do would be to shave my head and start from scratch, I’d do it in a second. Let’s hope that it doesn’t come to that.

Image courtesy of www.theknot.com

So there’s still so much to tell about Justin and I’s recent wedding-planning trip to Indiana! This week, I’m going to focus on the flowers and décor.

The first day of the visit, my mom, maid of honor and I visited my florist, Jerry Schooley at The Station Floral Design Studio (stationfloral.com). My wedding planner came, too, to help explain my vision and give suggestions (side note: one good thing about having a wedding in a semi-small town is that she has a relationship with all of the vendors you use. Very helpful!). I love my florist…I totally trust his style and am confident he’ll do a great job and help bring my vision of a modern candlelit ballroom to life. Anyway, about the flowers I chose: I’m obsessed with hydrangeas (they are so lush and beautiful) so of course I had to have them in my wedding. They cost $13-$15 a stem, which sounds like a lot, but we are going to use them in the ceremony and then reuse them at the reception. Plus, hydrangea stems have big blooms, so a little goes a long way. At the ceremony site, we’ll put green- and cream-colored hydrangea bouquets on pedestals on each side of the beginning of the aisle. We’ll also have simple aisle decorations—a plum-colored dahlia attached to a ribbon on every few rows of chairs. I didn’t want to go overboard with decorations at the ceremony because it’s going to (hopefully) be outside so I don’t want to overshadow the natural beauty of the site (plus, I want to save money!).

Next, we headed to my wedding planner’s office to talk about reception décor. We took stock of the decisions we’d made at the florist’s and talked about other decorations we need. We decided that we’ll have three different kinds of centerpieces—six of the tables will have one kind, six tables will have another type and six tables will have yet another type (for a total of 18 tables). Here’s a short description of each:

1) Dahlias and the hydrangeas from the ceremony will be in square-shaped vases of three different heights (similar to the vase below). The vases will be placed on top of mirrors and surrounded by lots of votives. My wedding planner raved about this set-up—she’s used something similar in a wedding before, and she says the candlelight reflects off of the water in the vases and the whole thing just looks gorgeous.

2) I really wanted some tall centerpieces, so I’m going to use tall tube-shaped vases that my wedding planner has (see picture of a similar vase below). I think they’ll look great with the stalk of dahlias we’re going to put inside them.

3) Lastly, we’ll use a very short, large, square glass vase (more like a square bowl, actually) with flower blooms and candles floating in water.

Also, a smattering of flower petals will be sprinkled on all of the tables. I’m really happy about our choices…I think they are simple but elegant. I can’t wait to see them all together and the room set up on our wedding day.

Photos courtesy of www.awsd.co.uk and www.chaircoversido.com.

When I was asked to be a flower girl, the thing I most looked forward to about my first wedding wasn’t getting to wear a pretty pink dress, walking down the aisle, or posing for photos (even though I was such a ham. Okay, still am): I was most excited about trying to catch the bouquet when the bride threw it.

So when bouquet tossing time came, I was prepared. I made sure I was front and center, and I wished as hard as I could that my cousin would throw it to me. She turned around. The band leader counted down, and suddenly the bouquet was in the air. I watched it carefully and, amazingly, it fell into my arms! I remember feeling the tulle that the stems were wrapped in touching my arms…and then scratching my arms. The bridesmaid standing next to me was pulling the bouquet away from me. I tried to hold on, but it was too late. She had full possession and people were cheering for her.

I was devastated. I tried to tell my parents that I had really caught it, but they assured me I hadn’t (the wedding video showed otherwise!).

Then came the garter toss, followed by some 20-something guy who had caught the garter sliding it up that evil bridesmaid’s leg. My mom said it was a good thing she caught the bouquet, and not me, because it wouldn’t have been okay for him to slide that on my leg.

Ever since then, I’ve had a strange relationship with bouquet tosses.

I originally wanted to invite all the kids at my wedding to the dance floor to try and catch it. That way, it wouldn’t be about singling out the single girls; it’d be about kids winning a prize! While I thought the idea was adorable, people I told it to did not, mainly because there will be just six kids at the wedding, which, apparently, is not much of a contest.

So now I don’t know whether to have one at all. I’m pretty sure I don’t want to do the garter toss. I’ll have my spanx on, and having Paul reveal my thigh-hugging undergarments to a room full of people is not my idea of a good time. Plus, I probably won’t wear a garter in the first place.

But I think it’d be fun to throw the bouquet. I’m sure a lot of my friends are morally opposed to the idea of fighting over flowers for the “honor” of being the next woman to get married, but I wouldn’t want to deny that fun should any of them want to partake. I know I would have jumped at the chance to try my luck again if I attended another wedding with a bouquet toss.

But is it strange to toss the bouquet and not the garter?

Countdown to the wedding: 55 days

The day before the wedding is going to be extremely busy: the last bridesmaid will arrive in town, we have our rehearsal at 5 PM at the church, followed by the rehearsal dinner, followed by a dessert reception for guests who want to touch base before the wedding. Aaron’s family is graciously hosting the rehearsal dinner and dessert reception, during which we will also have the slideshow. Our videographer, Andy, showed us the final version, and it looks awesome!

Luckily for us, the rehearsal dinner and the dessert reception will be in the same spot: The Toll House Hotel. This means that we don’t have to rush around between locations in order to get to everything on time. The Toll House’s restaurant, Three Degrees, is a gorgeously appointed venue with a menu of traditional American steakhouse fare. When we finish, we just walk a few feet to the patio courtyard, and we will have arrived at the dessert reception.

I, of course, am inexplicably fixating on a random detail: what to wear to these events. My outfit needs to be demure enough to wear to the church rehearsal and rehearsal dinner, but I also want to wear something fun when I see my friends and family at the dessert reception. By “fun,” I mean something that will let me stand out from the crowd, i.e., not a black dress, which is basically the only kind of dress I own.

Ideally, I’d like to find a tailored dress in a really pretty, deep jewel tone. I keep thinking back to Janay’s wedding, where one of her bridesmaids wore a strapless knee-length dress in this to-die-for purple to one of the wedding events; I wish I had asked her where she bought it!

Oh, and that’s another thing: I have to be really careful about buying anything new over the next six weeks because it will just have to be shipped out to California if it doesn’t fit in my suitcase. I plan to go through my wardrobe in a couple of weeks and donate a lot of the old stuff to charity, but if I don’t keep the basics I won’t have anything to wear in the weeks before the wedding.

Maybe I can wear this theoretical purple dress every day for two weeks before the rehearsal? And I’m sure no one will mind if I wear my wedding dress to the grocery store in the weeks after the wedding.

Image courtesy of the Toll House.

There’s so much to talk about concerning my wedding-planning trip to Indiana, so I’ll start with one of the things I’m the most excited about—our engagement photos! We think they turned out great, and we loved our photographer, LaRysa Marietta. Neither of us had met her before, but now that we’ve worked with her and seen the e-photos, we’re really happy that she’s going to be our wedding photographer. (Indiana brides: look her up at larysamariettaphotography.com).

At first, we weren’t completely comfortable in front of the camera (especially with the kissing photos) but she got some great photos out of us. She talked to us and made us laugh when we felt awkward. And I love that I didn’t have to tell her that I wanted the shoot to be photojournalistic and casual and fun and natural and not posed. She was already thinking that and just did it. It was everything I could have hoped for! She of course scouted locations and told us the best way to sit or stand for a good shot a few times, but I never felt that we were too stiff and posed. (Having said that, a few shots were posed/taken face-on because we needed photos to run with the engagement announcement in my hometown newspaper).

We were really lucky with the weather—our photo shoot day was beautiful (the day before it had been cold and rainy, so I had been worried.) It was about 65 degrees and sunny. But the wind was strong, so of course, I was worried that my hair would get whipped around and look stringy in five seconds flat. Luckily, the wind worked to my advantage—I think the pics look kind of cool with my hair blowing. It did start to bother me flying in my face, though, so when we changed outfits halfway through the shoot, I put my hair back in a ponytail.

Anyway, enough talk—here are a few of our favorite shots!

Countdown to the wedding: 55 days

When it comes to the reception, there are a few elements that are absolutely vital. Good music. Tasty food. A comfortable seating arrangement. A venue that does not spontaneously burst into flames. But perfect table favors do not make this list, not because I don’t like the idea of giving my guests a little something to take home with them, but because there just seem to be so many other priorities that trump this one. Besides, I’ve been to so many weddings where half of the favors are left on the table by the time everyone clears out of the reception hall. The trick is to find something cute and not too expensive that everyone will want to take home.

But how do you even go about deciding which favor to choose? From what I’ve seen on the Internet, you can buy everything from personalized bottles of hot sauce to frosted cookies made to look exactly like your wedding cake. I like the idea of getting something customized for our event, but I do not want to spend millions of dollars on a relatively miniscule detail.

One of my mother’s friends suggested we check out the website wrappedhersheys.com, which specializes in customized candy wrappers. I was skeptical at first—is it weird to just plop a candy bar on someone’s plate?—but one look at this company’s cute designs and I was sold. The candy bars also come in a number of fun sizes like mini, giant, and 5 lb (!). You can even just by the wrappers and put them on the candy bars yourself, if that makes more sense with your budget.

We’re deciding between a few different styles right now, but I am currently a big fan of this silver wrapper. The front would have our names printed on it, and the back would have this cute faux nutrition facts panel. Take a look:

Image courtesy of wrappedhersheys.com.

In anticipation of receiving our response cards, Paul and I made an Excel file of all our guests’ names and the corresponding number we wrote on the back of their response cards (a smart idea because some guests forget to write their names on the little “M_______” on the card and then you can’t figure out who replied!).

Just two days after we dropped the invites in the mailbox, we had 4 responses. All yeses. The next day, 7 responses. All yeses, and two returned envelopes that we flat out forgot to put stamps on. Um, duh. The next day, 9 responses. All yeses. I was starting to get nervous that all 215 people on the guest list were going to accept our invitation. I honestly don’t know how Paul and I would pay for the reception if that turned out to be the case.

And then the nos started coming.

First, it was three people I had never heard of. I actually let out a small, “Yay!” when I saw that they checked the lower box. The next day, two more I never met said no…and stuck a check inside the envelope! That was a huge surprise. I wrote that thank you note so fast. Then some of my friends’ significant others couldn’t make it. Sad, but fine. Then my grandparents’ friends of years and years (seriously, like 65) declined. My grandpa was especially bummed. Then a great aunt and a few of my cousins turned down the invite. Also sad. Then some of my friends. Very sad. Then my mom’s best friend and her family. So, so sad.

Apparently, our wedding date is a popular one for events: A bar mitzvah, a confirmation, a baseball tournament, a graduation, and a fishing contest in Texas (no joke). And, for some, the distance and expense are just too much.

As we added the responses to our spreadsheet, we figured out the percentage of people who replied. As of today, we have two-thirds of our responses with less than a week until our reply by date. I’ve been told that you get a lot of responses in the beginning, then they drop off (we had none today for the first time!), then, the day they’re due, you get a ton. I counted the number of people who probably will come and added it to the people who have already replied yes.

140.

That’s a BIG step down from the 215 on the list. Ordinarily, I’d be jumping for joy that we’re having a more intimate party, but we guaranteed 150 people for the reception, meaning no matter who shows, we’re paying for 150 dinners. I can’t believe there’s a chance that we won’t make the minimum. It’s a good thing we’re not at our old hall–we guaranteed 175 there! If every single person who hasn’t replied yet accepts, we’ll only have 174 now.

It’s strange to go from praying that people don’t come to your wedding to feeling remorseful that so many have declined the invitation. Knowing that only 140 out of 215 invited guests are coming to celebrate our wedding is almost as self esteem-crushing as when kids turned down your birthday party invite. What, that didn’t happen to you?

Countdown to the wedding: 62 days

So I have a confession to make: I haven’t been completely straightforward about why everything has been so stressful over the past few weeks. I mean, sure, there’s been the wedding planning, but that’s been the status quo. The truth of the matter is that Aaron and I have been deciding between staying in New York for another two years or moving back to California after the wedding. On Wednesday we decided on the latter option: we are moving back to the San Francisco Bay Area on May 31st.

We’ve had such an amazing experience in New York, and I think that the past nine months have taught us things about ourselves that we would never have discovered had we stayed in California. I seriously feel as though we’ve been through relationship boot camp, and I am so grateful to be able to have that be the foundation over which we build our marriage. That being said, I am really excited to start this new chapter of our relationship near the support network of our friends and family.

I am so lucky to have called New York City my home for this period of time. I’ve experienced things in nine months that most people wouldn’t experience in four years. But I have always been a California girl at heart, I am looking forward to the many things that the West Coast has to offer: copious sunshine, larger apartments, the Pacific Ocean, a lower cost of living. These sound like silly things, but to me they mean a great deal, and I am so excited that I will get to experience them about six weeks from now.

So now I am coordinating another cross-country move in addition to planning my June wedding. No big deal.

So right now, Justin and I are in Indiana for our weeklong marathon wedding-planning trip. I’m really hoping that after this visit, most of the wedding will be planned, and then we’ll just have to do the rest of the work like get save-the-dates and invitations out, make the favors and any other DIY projects (which my mom and sister-in-law will likely take charge of), finalize honeymoon plans, do dress and tux fittings, etc. Here’s what we’ve got on tap for this busy week:

Yesterday:
-I met with my hair stylist to start discussing wedding-day hair options
-My mom, maid-of-honor and I went to our wedding planner’s office. We ordered invitations and started to talk about décor options.
-We all went to my florist’s shop to make more decor decisions (more on all of these things later!)

Today:
-We’re headed to our wedding planner’s office again. This time we’re doing a cake tasting with our baker. Yummm! I made a sketch of a cake that I want to show our baker (basically I looked at tons of pictures of cakes and pulled all the elements I like together–I love flowers cascading down the cake. See picture below for an example). If all goes well today, we’ll decide on flavors, she’ll say she can make the cake I’ve “designed,” and we’ll sign a contract.

-Then, this afternoon, we have our engagement photo shoot. Crossing my fingers that it goes well and we get some great shots. (The yellow dress
arrived on time, but it was totally see-through! So I’m sending it back and wearing a blue dress that I already have. So much for new clothes!)

Tomorrow:
-No wedding-planning stuff! Just enjoying myself at my nephew’s birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese. He’s turning 3, and he’s the cutest thing in the world (he’ll be our ringbearer)!

Sunday:
-We go to our ceremony and reception site, Providence Center at St.-Mary-of-the-Woods College. First, we’ll do our food tasting (a few things on the menu: filet mignon and grilled citrus ginger chicken. Yum!) We’ll discuss bar and catering details with the catering manager and hopefully sign a contract detailing our decisions.

Monday:
-Go look at options for chair rentals for the ceremony (so I can make sure we don’t end up with regular old folding chairs)
-Visit the rehearsal dinner site (the presidential floor in Indiana State University’s student union) and decide on food and décor
-Go back to St. Mary’s (the ceremony/reception site) with our wedding planner to decide on ceremony logistics, finalize decorations, etc.

It’s going to be a whirlwind trip and I’m worried that with all the appointments and running around, I’ll forget to do something or make a hasty (or just plain silly) decision. Anyone have any tips for making the most of a trip like this?

Photo courtesy of brides.com.