I Will Take the Ring, Though I Do Not Know the Way

So it turns out that Adam and I will not have any pictures that look like this...

Source          /           Source    

...or this...

   

Source / Source (Frances Photography)

That's right boys and girls, there will be no flower girls or ring bearers at the Adam-Lindsy Nuptial Ceremony.

Adam and I discussed having a ring bearer awhile back.  First of all, none of our siblings have children.  Thus, we have no obvious candidates for flower girls or ring bearers. If we expand beyond that, we still don't have much, especially when it comes to boys.  My cousin has two boys, but they are almost too old to hold the ring bearer title.  We have one friend that has a boy, but he's only 2, they live far away and we're not super close either.  So we decided probably six months ago that we were not going to have a ring bearer.

As for flower girls, we were still keeping our options open.  My aunt has a four year-old daughter and Bridesmaid H has a 3 year-old.  I thought it would be cute to have the two of them together.  I was planning on asking my cousin (well, my aunt) at Christmastime when we went down to visit. I hadn't actually seen my cousin since right after she was born, so I thought it would be a nice way to include her in the wedding.  Now I know that part of the cute-ness of having children involved in your wedding is that, well, they act like children, but after visiting I had some rethinking to do.  I hope I'm not hurting feelings here in the event that a family member reads this...but I just didn't think that Cousin M was up to the challenge.  We were at my grandparents house (my mom, dad, brother and I) and it was hours before she would come and talk to us.  And there were only 4 people, not 150.  

I talked to Adam after  I got back and I told him I didn't think it was worth the hassle of going through all the work for it to potentially fail miserably.  I also told him that I didn't want to make Bridesmaid H's daughter do it by herself.  She was in a wedding last summer and did great, but she had another, older flower girl with her.  I also didn't want it to look bad to my aunt that we picked H's daughter over family.  So we decided "the hell with it" and said we're not going to have ring bearers or flower girls.  

I honestly don't know if people will even notice, it'll be interesting to see.  And I think it's rather symbolic of my and Adam's current lack of desire to have children...ever.  Getting this checked off the to-do list was kind of relieving and thus far I don't have any regrets!  That means no little tux, dress, basket, flower petals, or making extra phone calls and arrangements with the parents.  Although I am kind of sad that I won't be able to make an awesome cut-out book for the ring bearer to hold our rings:

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Is there anything traditional that you cut out of your wedding?  Did anyone notice?  Ever been to a wedding without flower girls or ring bearers yourself?

The Catch-up Post: Part 2

In continuance of yesterday's Catch-up Post: Part 1, I shall share more of my wedding-related endeavors:

4.  We booked the limo
I wanted to get the limo booked this past week because there is a bridal show coming up this Sunday.  I figured if I wanted to get it reserved, I better beat the crowd.  This limo service will be at the bridal show, so it will be nice for me to pick up my receipt and contract without having to make a separate trip or get it mailed to me.  We are using Top Hat Transportation Limousine Service here in Manhattan and we chose the Ford Excursion.  They also have a Hummer that seats 20 people, but 1). we really don't like hummers or the douche-bag reputation they have (in my own opinion, of course!), 2). we only need to have space for 13 people and the excursion seats 14, and finally 3). we don't need to pay an extra $100 for something we don't want or need.

Here is our ride from the church to the reception:

While this is something that wasn't a necessity AT ALL, Adam and I would both like to have a chance to hang out with the bridal party, get a bit tipsy, take some pictures with the photographer around town, and get transported to the reception without having to try to fit the dress into a car.  The minimum was 2 hours, and at $135/hour the total was just under $300 at $291.60.  I know that I've spent more money on crap at Wal-mart than that.  It also comes with a free bottle of champagne, soft drinks and glassware to use during our ride.  Check!


5.  We attempted bridesmaid dress shopping
I made an appointment with David's Bridal for the very end of December so that the bridesmaids could get together and we could go dress shopping.  Their Spring catalog had come out about a month earlier, so I was excited for the girls to be able to try on the new dresses and figure something out.  So we embarked on the trip to Topeka for dress shopping, only to find out that the majority of their Spring dresses had not been delivered to the store yet.  They had shipped the "board" and the catalogs of all their Spring dresses...but they hadn't shipped the dresses yet? Weird.  So the two bridesmaids that could make it tried on a few things, but we have to go back in February to (hopefully) finalize the deal.

I told the girls that I didn't care what dress they picked out as long as it was on the short board and was in the color peacock.  We'll see how my attempt at mismatched dresses goes.  The attendant was a little worried about exact length (above the knee, knee and mid-calf) and the fabric type, but I don't think it will be too big of an issue...we'll have to wait and see!


6.  We finalized plans for the rehearsal dinner
If you remember, Adam and I went to Hibachi Hut before our engagement pictures (and drank a little too much). Both of us are in love with the place and were hoping that we could use the restaurant for our rehearsal dinner.

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I knew the Hibachi Hut did catering, but I didn't want to have to hassle with finding a place to rent out, hiring a caterer, dealing with linens and decorations twice.  So we called them up the other day to see if they were willing to let us use half of the restaurant for our rehearsal dinner and we sat down and talked with them a few days later and our answer was Yes!

The catering manager/owner suggested that we order several different dishes and let people choose from those options, but we particularly like the entire menu and the variety of dishes that it offers.  It's technically a cajun restaurant, but you can get anything from a hamburger to chicken fried steak (Gordon Ramsay would be so disappointed!).  We wanted to give our family/friends more options than four, so we asked if they would just let everyone order off the menu...and they said yes.  The only stipulation was that everyone probably won't get their food at the same time.  Adam and I discussed this and said we'd rather do that and just forewarn everyone about the timing.

Hibachi Hut was originally two different restaurants, that and Texas Star Cafe. You would walk in and say which restaurant you were going to.  In the last couple of years, they merged it into one restaurant and did some renovations, but it works quite well to reserve half of the restaurant to ourselves:

You can see the other side of the restaurant through the "windows" / Source

  

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Pretty much they were flexible with anything we wanted.  We know the food's great and they're going to make our beloved long islands in a pint-sized glass (rather than the big ones) to serve as a signature drink!  We said yes, let's do it, and it's nice that we don't have to pay a penny besides the final bill at the end of the night.


Thanks for tuning in for another installment of The Catch-up Post!  Not a very comment worthy post, but share your wedding progress!

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! 

Save Our Date

I suppose it's time for the official Save-the-Date reveal.  I was a good girl over winter break and got them addressed and sent out to friends and family to I can share them without completely ruining the surprise.

In our last update, I was working on the design.  I got them printed off at Walgreens so that I could physically see the designs and then Adam could sift through them and pick out what he liked.  Turns out we had quite a difference of opinion.  We did end up compromising, but it took some trial and error to get the pictures that we both liked with a format/style that work with it.

I was originally just going to send 4x6 photographs as our Save-the-Dates.  They are cheap and I could just upload my design, but then I got my great Vistaprint deal. Also, after seeing the prints, I wanted them to be a bit larger than 4x6.  If you go up to a 5x7 photo, they are essentially the same price as a standard Save-the-Date on cardstock but you don't get printing on both sides. Thus it was decided.

    

To prepare them for their journeys, I spent several hours one evening looking up envelope addressing etiquette.  It's quite a pain!  Even though Save-the-Dates can be informal, I went ahead and did Mr. & Mrs. So-and-so.  For some people, I broke tradition and put "& Family" on the envelope.  I even called my mom and had some questions for her, but she was almost as clueless as me.

The difficult part was that most of the etiquette surrounds wedding invitations with inner/outer envelopes, whereas Save-the-Dates do not have those.  Martha Stewart also told me that I'm not supposed to print on the envelopes; I am supposed to handwrite them, but I found a nice handwriting font instead.  Take that, Martha. It's called "Shelter Me" and I found it on dafont.com.

So that's the official reveal!  I added my fancy new Vistaprint return address labels to the corner and a rose stamp to seal the deal.  I tried to get Adam to lick all the envelopes, but he was not a willing contributor.  I forgot to take a picture of the stack before they went to the post office, but oh well!

How did you do your Save-the-Dates?  Were you happy with how they turned out? Did you break tradition and upset Martha with your lack of etiquette formality?