The Catch-up Post: Part 1

I have been quite busy these days with wedding stuff.  Christmas Break was entirely too short, but it was nice to have a few days off from the students and get my butt in gear with this planning stuff.  Thus, I shall indulge you in my latest achievements:

1.  I ordered my wedding flowers (well, some of them)
I went to two different florists to get floral quotes.  The first florist was extremely helpful and really helped me to form an idea of what I wanted.  She spent about an hour with me trying to envision the flowers that I wanted for the wedding.  I got the quote from her about a month later:  $750 (when I really only wanted to spend a maximum of $500).

I made a second appointment with a florist that is a friend of Adam's family.  I totally name-dropped Adam's dad's name, and she said she would give us a good deal, but it didn't really make too big of a dent on the $750 number.  Plus, I felt like the 1st florist was much more in-tune with my ideas.

Then Sam's Club saved the day.  You can buy bulk flowers from them and they are cheap cheap cheap.  They send them to you dried several days before you need them, you hydrate them as soon as they are delivered and you have beautiful, fresh flowers on your wedding day.  The reviews are amazing.

So I decided to have the first florist make all of the boutonnieres and corsages (for around $150) and then do the bouquets and centerpieces myself.  I am a little worried about doing the bouquets...but that is what practice is for!  I could probably have done the bouts and corsages also, but I don't know how far in advance I can "build" them before they wilt. It also requires having to buy smaller amounts of flowers and I can't exactly do that from the Sam's Club website.

And here are my wedding flowers:

     

  Sources:  hydrangea / roses /  carnations

My bouquet and the centerpieces will have all three types of flowers.  The bridesmaids bouquets will just have roses and carnations.  I absolutely love the look of bunched carnations and they are inexpensive flowers...yay double bonus.  The downside is that you can only order through Sam's Club about a month in advance.  I did notice that their prices have changed since I looked last...so here's to hoping that their prices don't skyrocket in lovely June-the-most-busy-wedding-month!


2.  We official-ized our caterer
We have been talking to our caterer for several months now, The Friendship House.  Like everyone else in Manhattan, the owner is good friends with Adam's dad.  They have a restaurant in Wamego (about 20 minutes away) that we've gone to several times to pop in and talk with the owner to discuss our wedding.  He went ahead and penciled us in for the date, but we never sat down with him, paid the deposit, or decided what exactly we wanted to serve (at the moment anyway).

We had eaten the restaurant food on several occasions.  While it was good, it wasn't take-my-breath-away-and-everyone-talks-about-how-good-the-food-was-at-your-wedding amazing, so I was a little hesitant to decide.  In late December, we had a Christmas party for Adam's company and The Friendship House catered the meal.  It was seal-the-deal good.  After having their catered food, I was ready to sit down, pay our deposit and move forward with this catering stuff.  Thus, we will be having smoked brisket and Italian-crusted chicken. Check.


3.  I went after-Christmas shopping
Sorry, it's kind of late to give you any great tips, but I got some sweet deals at after-Christmas sales for the wedding:

• White Christmas lights and white icicle lights for 50% off - to decorate the reception hall (the Wareham has an amazing brick wall at the back of the stage...think old opera house...and it will look pretty sweet all lit up
• 9oz plastic cups for the bar for 50% off - we're going to use these for wine at the reception, although I don't know why they were considered Christmas clearance...
• Sparkling grape juice (originally $2.99 - lowered to $2 and then it was "buy 2 get $1 off") - we're going to have this as a non-alcoholic option for the toasts for our non-drinker and kid guests
• Of course...I also bought lots of other crap that is not wedding related (nor needed).

Stay tuned this week to get Part 2 of the Catch-up Post.  We'll talk about the rehearsal dinner, cake (kinda...), flower girls and ring bearers (or lack thereof), and bridesmaid dress shopping attempt #1.

ALSO...if you're like me and save your ink cartridges...Staples is giving $6 in rewards for your old cartridges when you buy $50 in ink this week.  You can recycle up to 10 (=$60).  I've got to buy ink to print off the invitations in the next month or so and then I'll also get a free $60 around the same time to get some more...but for free!