Whoa! Did we get a lot of things checked off our wedding to-do list this month, or what? With less than three months until we tie a big ol’ knot in our lives, we made serious headway in planning our special day.
Friends keep asking us how the planning is going and whether we’re too busy or stressed out with all of the details, and the truth of it all is that it has been really smooth so far. Pete and I agreed early on with some of the big details pertaining to location, date, theme, and style, and we’ve been chugging along getting a little bit done each day to reach our deadline without being slammed with things to do in the 11th hour. For example, while watching TV last night I ran 80 envelopes through our printer to add a customized return address, and will probably begin addressing them for invites tonight. Check, check, check, checkity-check check.
It’s going to be wonderful.
Want a quick snapshot into what we’ve done this month?
1. Let there be food!
Food is a must for our little cocktail affair, and yes, if I haven’t formally announced it yet, our wedding will be a cocktail-style wedding without a formal sit-down dinner, with plenty of hors d’oeuvres and desserts and drinks to make it a joyous time for all, kids included. The Four Weddings crowd would totally be scoring us low for making decisions like these.
Luckily, we didn’t have to spend too much time thinking about who we wanted to cater our event. Pete and I went to a wedding together last year that had, hands down, the best food ever, and we wanted to try and give our guests that same experience so we went straight to the source. Madeline’s Catering works right out of a local studio in our town, Artisan Works, and Madeline herself was quick to meet with us to make a menu on the spot. She also had loads of great tips for serving guests cocktail-wedding style, and we feel really confident in our decision. Sure, you’re probably wondering why we didn’t consider shopping around and getting various quotes or menus, but there’s something to be said for having your trusted first choice available on your wedding day with three months notice, and having the whole menu decided upon in a short hour. Decisiveness at it’s finest.
2. I went dress shopping! And on a mini-vacation.
I mentioned a few times that my Mom and I went to New York City earlier this month to try on wedding dresses and classy mother-of-the-bride dresses; the timing of the trip coincided with a big birthday for her and we had a fun time exploring the city. Through no intentional planning of my own (I was being el cheapo on hotels.com and really lucked out), we ended up staying at World Center Hotel with a room overlooking ground zero and the memorial pools in Manhattan the week of 9/11, making our impromptu visit that much more memorable. Even instagram couldn’t do it justice.
I was there on a mission to get a dress that weekend, and although we only went to two different appointments, I still came home with two dresses to decide between (both were charged and one will be returned!).
From an overall bride-to-be perspective, and coming from someone who has never had to go through this bridal bootcamp with any other friends, the dress shopping experience is a lot different than what you see on TLC; for the record, neither appointment was at Kleinfeld’s and no, I will not be on a TV show that documents how harried I looked after running around New York City with a runny nose. The 1-hour appointment at both shops seemed nowhere near long enough, even considering that I knew pretty definitively what I wanted to try on and what look I wasn’t going for. The appointments were rushed and impersonal, although I guess I shouldn’t expect all consultants to be act as though they’re straight out of Say Yes To The Dress (Low Budget DIY Edition).
For now, that’s about all you’re going to get out of me because Pete reads this blog and the remaining dress details are a top secret until W-Day.
3. Up top, high five!
We’re still shopping around for the perfect cake – truth is, we have something in mind but our top bakeries seem to be so booked the month of December that they’re not as willing to take on a custom job. In the meantime, we did pick out our cake toppers, and they’re perhaps my favorite component of the wedding so far.
I bought this sweet little duo from etsy shop snugglymonkey earlier this month (for $4, wheee), and while it seems to be trendy to paint little facial features and clothing on them (as seen in this etsy tutorial) I think leaving them plain is more our style. The light au natural wood is smooth, clean, and modern, and it’ll flow nicely with the vibe of our wedding day. Considering that there are infinite directions you can go with cake toppers these days, I’m just glad I locked in on a pair that I liked early on before I became obsessed with finding something uber-specific.
If you have reliable bakery recommendations in the City of Rochester, let me know!
4. Let them be letterpress!
We saved a bunch of dough doing our save the dates ourselves (with some inexpensive help from Kinko’s), so splurging on our invites themselves ended up being an easier expense to digest. We’ve happily chosen and met with a local letterpress shop, a girl after my own heart who has the tools of her trade consuming her entire garage, and we’re on track to have another unique design of Pete’s produced early next month.
There’s a lot to consider when you’re looking for a printing partner, and for those of you who already have a dozen questions about how we’re working with her, I’m already planning on doing a follow-up post with quick tips to help you manage your own professional printing job, whether it be for birth announcements or graduations or your own sweet wedding.
5. We’re still in the midst of ring shopping, honeymoon planning, registry makin’, and officiant creatin’.
Any tips pertaining to any of those things would be welcomed. Am I the only one who didn’t know about universal registries? Those kind of things are the newfangled technologies that I wish I had known about sooner. Tell me more, I’m all ears.
11 Comments
I’m using Madeline’s for my wedding in May. We’re doing a cocktail-style reception as well so I can’t wait to read about your experience! Glad to read that Madeline had recommendations for this type of event. When we met with planner from the wedding location she didn’t offer much help in planning out the menu for quoting purposes but they did say once it was closer we would meet with Madeline and confirm menu details.
I’ve found Madeline’s to be one of the best (if not the best) caterer in Rochester just from the parties and weddings I’ve attended that they’ve catered. :)
So excited for you, Erin! Congrats on the engagement! Madeline offered a lot of good tips about organizing flow of traffic which really helped us, and then was able to go right through the menu and yay/nay different things we wanted based on how they’d hold up in a cocktail party-like setting. Do not have that meeting on an empty stomach, it was worse than going to Wegmans before eating lunch.
(And phew, I’m so relieved that we were able to secure her — popular lady!)
Hi!
Love your story! I just recently started following you.
For rings, take a look at the Etsy shop robandlean….they make wonderful natural stone, gem, and metal rings, and will work with you to customize yours. Their customer service was excellent, with fast responses to all of my emails. We wanted something really different, since we are 51 and 52 and this is not a first marriage for either of us, and we are modern and hip in our middle age (no mom/dad jeans for us!) We had our wedding on a whim (5 days planning!) and tied the knot January 27th this year, and the “junk rings” we ordered and had engraved suit us perfectly.
Many blessings to you both, and keep up the good work!
Thanks for the suggestion, Patty! I will check them out, you sound like one satisfied customer! So glad to have a few fan :)
Just had a birthday cake last weekend from this spot: http://www.facebook.com/SpecialTDesserts. It was delicious and beautiful; just an idea for you.
Thank you for that recommendation! The cakes on their page look wonderful…
Apparently it’s very hip now for people to make their own rings with the help of a jeweler and a blow torch. Seems like something you’d like. ;-)
The MAG has some fun jewelry classes and I learned how to do just that.
Cool tips, yo. I remember your jewelry making project. Love it.
Would love to hear more about the tips you got for a cocktail reception. We are doing a cocktail reception too and I’m feeling considerably less confident about it!
The recommendations she had for us were based a lot around the size of our venue, which may or not be a consideration for you. Our biggest takeaway was that we needed to be able to manage traffic flow in the small space, and having 2-3 food stations would eliminate congestion. Similarly with beverage distribution, she suggested keeping the alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages separate to keep things easier (and eliminate the chances of underage kids getting their hands on the wrong bottle). It’s not that there wouldn’t be supervision over the drink areas, but she stressed the liabilities that would be on us and the venue owners if something were to go awry, so in a way it knocked some sense into us (that may or not be an issue, we’re expecting upwards of 20 kids under 10 and probably another 20 under the age of 21).
She (as any vendor should be able to speak to, I presume) was really quick to say what foods would 1) be too sloppy to eat with your fingers without a table and 2) what foods wouldn’t hold up well to sitting on a table without a lot of rotation or management (i.e. I think she advised us against phillo dough foods, but thought we’d be good with small skewers and stuffed mushrooms). She was able to speak generally about what what foods paired well together, and steered us in a good direction for including vegetarian and gluten-free options, as well as a few options that were bound to be more kid-accepted to make sure we had something for everyone, regardless of how long they planned to stay at the reception.
And as I mentioned – this was all in an hour! It was such good advice. I hope it helps you too!
Thanks so much for the detailed reply. It actually reassured me quite a bit!