Two for the Road

Ok wedding planners, I need your ideas.  Even though I have quite awhile until my wedding (10.10.10) I'm trying to get ideas for the Rehersal Dinner.  What did/are you planning on doing for your rehersal dinner? I'm open to all ideas from ordering pizza to a fancy dinner.  And if you are a member of a wedding party, what kind of rehersal dinner would you expect?  Thanks in advance for all your ideas.  I know you won't let me down!

My dad knows nothing about wedding planning at all. He and my mom got married in front of a Christmas tree by a JOP and had no reception. (I'm not judging this option just letting you know this is what he has to go on.) He's trying to tell me I'm getting screwed on the reception I have planned. We haven't signed a contract and I don't think I'm getting screwed but I just wanted someone to back me up please. Reassure me that I'm not as off as he thinks I am please?

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 Hi everyone! I am finally, belatedly, posting my intro, because I have some questions to ask. You may have seen me lurking and commenting a little bit, but I am hoping to kick my planning into high gear in the next few months ( Introduction )


And I have a few clothing/color related questions. Does anyone have pictures of real brides (with the rest of their bridal party) in a light gold gown? I am wearing Maggie Sottero's Dallas Marie in light gold and am totally stumped about what color my girls and the guys should wear! Any suggestions at all would be wonderful! I want my wedding to feel summery! (I would post a picture but I have no idea, so if someone wants to post one in the comments, that would be wonderful) The dress is here: http://www.maggiesottero.com/dress.aspx?style=J1127. I ordered the ribbon in light gold, also, but I think I will either remove it or have one made in a color to match the bridesmaids' dresses (whatever color that winds up being!) 

Speaking of summery, I am getting married in August in Northern Michigan, so the weather could be wonderful, or it could be raining, freezing, or super hot. I would LOVE to get a cute bolero or wrap to go with my dress, so if you have seen any cute ones on etsy or somewhere else, please share them with me. I would like to spend under or around $100 (plus or minus shipping).

Oh, and do you think it's okay to wear a white/ivory veil with a light gold dress? Does anyone have pictures of this?  THANK YOU!!

*edited to fix formatting...sorry, my computer is being weird*

Initially FH and I were going to fly to Montreal two days after our wedding and return 4 days later (a Monday-Friday trip) due to restricted amounts of time off we can take. I've been finding packages for around $1,200 for both our round trip nonstop flights and hotel stay. With the addition of food and attractions we are probably looking at closer to $1,500+. I thought with taxes this spring that this could fit into our budget but the more I think about it the more I don't want to spend that much. I looked at google maps to see how far it would be to drive and it's 16 hours and stops in Lansing, MI where a friend of mine lives. We've done 16 hour trips before and if we stop in Lansing for the Sunday night after our wedding we'll only have 9 hours to tackle in the morning and would arrive in Montreal around 3pm just in time to check into a hotel. Driving would cost us about $1,000 after gas, hotel, food, and attractions.

So has anyone had good experiences roadtripping for their honeymoon? It sounds fun and I think could be a good way to bond and have a first big experience as a married couple.

Also, anyone from the Montreal area...do you have hotel recommendations? Attractions? etc? We were thinking about going to Niagra Falls on the way to or from Montreal (it's about an hour and a half off our route home, and extra 3 hours of driving and then time spent there). Is it worth it? What can you do there?

We just got our engagement pics and we heart them sooooo much! Here's our pics featured on the photographer's blog.

Some more e-session pictures that were unfeatured (but we love them just the same) and our DIY Vistaprint STDs (har har har) are behind the cut.

( cut for 7 big images )

This post is equal parts curiosity and "what the hell am I doing?"

I get that announcements should be sent to people who couldn't, for whatever reason, be invited to the wedding. But what about people who were invited but couldn't attend? Traditionally, do those folks also get an announcement? Also, is there a usual time frame for when to send these puppies? My bit of Googling only generated results saying to mail them on the day of the wedding or a few days afterward. I have absolutely no intention of working on announcements until after our honeymoon and in reality may not touch them until the chaos of moving has diminished. (We're getting married January 9th and moving at the end of the month.)

I'm also wondering about wording tricks. I've seen a lot of "Bride and Groom were married in a private ceremony" but that's not the case with us. No, we weren't able to invite every single person we wanted to, but there are more people than just our immediate family and/or a handful of friends who will be present. Do I just avoid the subject altogether and say "Bride and Groom were married on This Date and Year in City, State" or something to that effect? (Which sounds really boring and stilted, but that's another topic altogether.)

I sent out my invitations recently (a little late for our Jan 30th date, but it's a very small wedding and pretty much everyone being invited already knew they were getting an invite), but totally forgot to get pictures before I did! Luckily I managed to get pictures of my mom's invitation after she received it.

I've made invitations for a few friends, and it's really fun. Since I sent out a grand total of 14 invitations, doing it myself seemed like the only sensible way to go. All the paper came from Paper Source, who I love and highly recommend for fine stationery needs.

( here there be pictures, arrr. )

Now, a question! I need to come up with a hair plan, and I'm having trouble finding short bridal hairstyles that I like. I'm not really planning on an updo, since it's so short, but I would like it to look a bit done. Recommendations?

( For reference, here is what my head looks like. )

I know that this conversation has happened here many times over, but I wanted to bring it up again. 

Are you changing your last name? Why or why not? I wanted to post a poll, but I don't have a plus or paid account so I can't. If someone else wants to though, I'd be interested to see. 

Are you taking your partner's name? Are you combining your names? Are you flat out keeping yours? Are you hyphenating yours? Are you changing your name completely?

I'm graduating from my undergrad in May. My official graduation date isn't until June 4th though, and my wedding day is only 2 weeks after that. Clearly my diploma will have my maiden name on it. This usually wouldn't be a big deal, except that my job search is going to start before graduation. I will be sending out my resume with my maiden name it/ What happens if I show up on the first day with a different name? FH and I have talked about it on multiple occasions. I've always loved my last name. It feels so strange to think that it simply won't be my name anymore. One time when we talked about it though, FMIL overheard us and was shocked that I might not take his last name. She was totally confused about what it would mean. She asked me what last name our kids would have, and I explained that they would take FH's last name, and she simply didn't understand how it worked and was really upset about it. FH told me that he would have no problem hypennating his last name with mine, so we would both have the same last name, a combination of both. Unfortunately we don't feel like this would go over well with his parents either, as he is the last male in his family (all of his cousins are girls, or married and only had girls as children, and his brother didn't have any kids). So, that means it's up to us to repopulate... combining our last names would ruin that. 
I had the shocking realization today when I signed up for a gmail account  that my name won't be that name in 6 months. Because of all of these factors, I think I've decided that I will hyphenate my name with his. I asked FH if he was okay with it and he said he was totally fine. He told me that he would know I was his wife regardless of what my name was. I feel like it makes everything easier for me.  I keep my name, so my email is still correct, it matches my diploma and my resume, while still taking his last name and having people look at our names and realize that we are married. 

In addition to all of this, I feel like my name and his last name sound terrible together. 
I am currently Amelia Antrim, and his last name is Crouse (pronounced like Kraus). Amelia Crouse just sounds like a mouthful to me, but Amelia Antrim is nice. In addition to that, County Antrim is where Bushmill's Irish Whiskey is made (even though I know that Jameson is better) , and they have a GAA football team, so I can easily get stuff with my last name on it, and it makes me extremely happy. 

What are you doing? Why? 

Hello, I've kinda been lurking here a while, planning a wedding for spring 2010. I'd been surfing online for a wedding dress and bought one online from China because of the tempting prices. Yes, I did do research and found horror stories but there are good endings too. So, I found a dress I really liked and ordered it Nov 27, from DHGate.com. I got an email notice that it shipped on Dec 9. I received the dress yesterday, Dec 16, that makes turnaround time just under 3 weeks. Here are the results. ( I'll try to stop being so shy but here are pictures )

stepstomarrow
When granddaughter, Jada, was born with leukemia, a donor-match was located and Jada made a miraculous recovery. In honor of her grandaughter's health, Jeanna has decided to walk across the country (in the dead of winter) to raise awareness and build support for the bone marrow registry (all that's required is a cheek swab). Follow Jeanna's remarkable journey as she travels the United States by foot.

Are you having your dress altered by a local seamstress, or by someone from a bridal salon? What are you having altered, and how much does it cost you?

Remember the gray dress that I posted? Now I have decided that I want to feel like a princess for a day (hey, WHEN else would I ever get to do this? Lol), so now the hunt for a white dress begins. I'm saving the gray dress for one of the formal nights on the honeymoon cruise that we'll go on.

I'm now living in the Temecula/Wildomar/Lake Elsinore in California. If you are familiar with the area and know of a good seamstress, just let me know! :-) I have found a few on Craigslist who seem nice, but I'm always open to suggestions.

ETA: I've found an experienced seamstress who's willing to do basic alterations (hemming and taking in at the bust, just in case I need to have those done to the dress) for under $100! Now, I can start my quest for the perfect princess dress. Lol. :-)

Shawn said he'd like to do a dollar dance. I didn't know what one was, so he explained it to me, and it sounds like a great idea. I was thinking of using the song "Take the Money and Run" or perhaps "Money (Thats what I want)" but do any of you have any better ideas? What songs are you guys using for your dollar dance?

Hello! My name is Claire (pinkguitar84). My husband and I got married in Cincinnati, Ohio on October 24th, 2009. I joined this community mostly to watch and get ideas, since I joined only a few months before my wedding. I'll post later about the joys, the drama, and whatnot, but for now, we jsut got our professional pictures back and I thought folks might like to see them.

To view: Go to www.reecephotography.com. Click on Web Gallery. Enter event id "cmjoes"

It will ask you for a name and email. You DO have to enter a name and email, but it doesn't have to be the real thing. You can make up a name and an email.

It should bring up Claire & Michael Joesting

Enjoy!

I really like watching photographer wedding slideshows and I realized that ours will be removed from the web in February (I can't believe we have already been married for almost a year!).

So, this is a "show me your.....wedding slideshow!" :)

Sitting in Astronomy right now. We're currently studying stars, nebulae, black holes, all the really cool stuff out in space. Y'know, the awesome phenomoena you only ever see in science fiction.

The prof showed an image of the Horsehead nebula, and I started thinking about all the amazing images from Hubblesite (the wallpapers are my favourite). Wouldn't it be amazing to blow those images up to poster size and display them during the reception? They're definitely something FH and I would display in our home.

I've talked in a previous entry in my journal about possibly using a star theme, putting stars in my hair, decorating the tables with origami stars, etc. Something randomly sparked an idea for a dress. I thought about using a dark-coloured fabric for the dress, and putting some sort of netting over the skirt with something sparkly, like rhinestones or sequin, to look like stars. Probably have beading or something sparkly on the bodice too. Has anyone seen anything like this?

X-posted to alternative_wed, nerdweddings and my personal journal.

Our wedding was Sept 13, 2009 on Long Island, NY and it was AWESOME!

First of all, some shout-outs to a few of my vendors that I thought did a really great job. I'd totally recommend them to others planning their wedding.

- Balloons Unlimited - Handled the decorations. I told Linda I was afraid to use balloons because I didn't want the party to look like a kid's bar mitzvah. (A serious worry if you're planning a wedding to a theme common to bar mitzvahs!) She told me not to worry, and she was right. It all looked so classy and followed the theme perfectly.

- Stanley's Bakery - Made the cupcakes. Delicious cupcakes! Made the night before, so they were tasty and fresh. Also, I liked that they didn't try to push fondant on me like some other bakeries I looked at. Whatever I wanted was ok by them.

- Memento Photography - Responsible for the awesome pictures below. Totally understood the style I was going for and loved my theme. Also, they were really willing to work to my budget. Oh, and Anthony is seriously a ninja. I did not see him AT ALL during the ceremony or dinner, but he managed to get tons of great shots!

( Blast off to the the pictures! WHOOOSH! )

The rest of the professional shots can be found here and the pool of all our wedding pictures is here!

Advice to other brides:
- Double check your contracts for personal check vs certified check. Seriously. Or you may end up trying to get a certified check on a Sunday, which might I add, is near impossible.
- Ignore everyone that says you can't do __________ at your own wedding. They are boring and lack imagination. (Especially ignore them if that person is your mother!)
- Let yourself shine through! Don't worry about what they do in magazines or websites. Make it YOUR wedding!

...since our Save the Dates have now gone out, I can share them!

( Save the Date! )

I just made something pretty awesome that I wanted to share for our wedding next May! Since we live in the Washington DC area, I thought this would be neat...

( What could it be? )

I went dress shopping again. :)
My wedding is only 5 months away, and I don't have the dress. Obviously, I don't have time to order one in the store, so I am set on LilyWedding.com.
First I went to a little shop in town, and picked 3 gowns, then went there again and narrowed my choice to 2.
That same day I went to DB and tried on something cheaper, because these 2 dresses were 2 and 3 times over my budget. Also, I got a quote from LilyWedding for a replica of the most expensive one - right in my budget,made in 2 weeks and I can order a lace sample!
But now I am having second thoughts: if I am creating my wedding dress already, why can't I combine 2 winners?.. Well, I can, but I can't draw and, hence, can't get a picture in my head. :( darn.

Anyway, onto pictures. Please, note and excuse that the dresses were size 12-14, and I am size 2 and 5'6"
( tons of dress porn :) )

I ran across a Web forum this evening, http://www.thefedoralounge.com/.
Although it's mostly 1930s-1940s, there's a ton of information, and just looking through a couple of threads about what makeup forum members use, I've managed to track down some 1950s options. I figured that those of us who've been trying to find inspiration (and product names) could use a point in the Lounge's direction.