Where did the time go? I didn’t post at all this month, I can’t believe it’s the end of February. Okay, so I have quite a few things almost done… like, invitations are almost done. There was some minor drama when I took them to the post office to weigh two of them and the guy told me that the bows I had put on them would cost 20 cents extra. 20 cents! 78 * 20 = $15.60 extra. On top of… 13 * .59 = 7.67 (that’s the ones that have actual mail in RSVP cards, there’s only 13 of them), 65 * .42 = 27.30… so I’m already paying $40 to mail something, no need to add $15 more.

So I switched the ribbon to kind of band–it’s glued together so that it will slide off the invitation. I’m hoping it doesn’t look tacky to glue ribbon together like that but if people are just sliding it off and getting rid of it, it should be fine, right? I keep debating about putting some kind of paper over the ribbon edges so people don’t see it. Hmmm…

Anyway, here’s pictures of the invites before I decided not to do the bows… In one of those pictures you’ll see some colored edges on the inserts; I’m not actually going to do that anymore due to the time involvement, that was just a sample. I heat embossed in the center of the invites, that gold swirly flowery design. I also embossed the outside of the paper–a different kind of embossing that creates a raised design in paper. You can see it if you look closely, the paper is patterned. That was a pain in the neck (literally) and I spent months on that, no joke. The rest of the invite process has been pretty painless.

So I am really excited that that is almost done. I even have enough of that salmon colored paper left to do wedding programs with it, so that’s pretty exciting!

In other news, we met with our pastor, Jason, who was my old boss (and also worked with Brian so he knows us both really well). It was different meeting with him in that context, but he gave us a paper with a sample ceremony so we’ll be tweaking that. I thought a little about ceremony music, we have an organist that comes with the church. About a month before the wedding I’ll probably have to call her, I’m not looking forward to that because she’s older and I don’t know, I just don’t like calling people as it is. Anyway, I’ll probably be pretty traditional and stick with what she knows.

I found a florist, finally!!! I had gotten quotes from 4 different places… for the flowers I had wanted, they all wanted like $800, and one of them took a month to get me a quote and that was the only one I had requested carnations in some of them just to see if the price would come down. It went down to the $560 but that wasn’t the flowers I really wanted. So this lady did my cousin’s wedding and has actually worked with Stacey outside of her wedding on a couple occasions, and also she works out of her home so she doesn’t have the same overhead that florist shops do. She is over my budget (my original budget for fresh flowers for all the people flowers was an outrageously low $200, that was before I realized it wasn’t realistic; I then raised it to $500); she came in at around $650 when all is said and done but I get the flowers I wanted. Roses and hydrangea, to match my fake centerpieces of course! Her name, should you want it, is Joanne with Petals at Ivy Hill.

Our cake lady also works out of her home; we went to 3 places to try cakes. Our cake will be square and two-tiered with scrollwork that doesn’t cost extra and maybe a ribbon around the tier. The rest will be sheet cakes. Judy’s Sweet Sensations is what she’s called. I really like her and she’s really knows her stuff and had lots of inspiration pictures for us to look at though in the end I went with a picture I found online. This lady is the lowest, but again over budget. My budget was just unrealistic, I guess. I’m really afraid that we’re going to be way out of budget for the DJ… we’re over by a couple thousand dollars already, I don’t want to make this ridiculous. We don’t have our DJ yet, that’s next on my list.

I firmly believe that I’ve gotten a really good deal on a lot of things and I’m making a lot of stuff. Those invites have cost a fraction of pre-made ones, and so have the centerpieces. But let’s face it, I don’t have to have a DJ and I don’t have to have fresh flowers and various other things, so I’m starting to feel a little guilty about the cost. My parents have dedicated a certain amount, and that won’t change; Brian’s parents are paying for the alcohol and will do one other contribution. The rest, all that over budget-ness, will be paid by Brian and I.

We’re booking our honeymoon this weekend, and a part of me is almost more excited for that than the wedding, haha! The honeymoon will be in Punta Cana, Domincan Republic, and will be at the Majestic Colonial. We looked at Iberostar since that’s where we stayed in Mexico and we had such a great experience; but the hotel pictures looked the same as Mexico! I wanted a different look and feel; the Colonial is super classy looking. It will be all inclusive; the rooms have room service and a jacuzzi and we’re looking at either the ground floor which has direct access to the pool, or the third or fourth floors which have private balconies with jacuzzis outside too! Both are unbelievable options and I’ve left it to Brian to decide. It will be for 9 days. I’m so excited, I can’t wait!

So that was super long. I’ll have to post another day about non-wedding stuff, haha 🙂