Saturday, May 29, 2010

Organization

Yesterday I was spraying odour remover into my gym bag and running shoes, when my mister asked what I was doing. When I told him, he thought I said "Order Remover" and laughed because he thinks that is what I am...an order remover.

And he's not too far off, which I'm sure foreshadows the chaos that will be my wedding planning for the next year.

I actually envy those people that organization and structure comes so easy to, perhaps that is why I fell in love with him. I have such high hopes for myself but the follow through never seems as structured as my original vision. I get distracted by details and go off in tangents.

An example would be this blog. I would love to write posts based on the linear path in which a wedding is suggested to be planned in and yet that isn't how I think so one minute I'm fixating on the menu and the next I'm planning pretty aprons for my servers to wear and then what kind of lawn games I can set up for the guests. These thoughts are all connected and make sense to me but they lack the order I strive for.

So please bare with me if I take little detours or seem a little scattered. I actually plan multiple events a year through my job so I do know what I'm doing...for the most part...and things will fall in place, its just going to be a work in process.

Friday, May 28, 2010

Bridal Shower - To answer your question, yes...

My mister's mother has no daughters and has been 'patiently' waiting for one of sons to get married so that she could get one...or at least that is my opinion...so now that that day has come she has requested to throw me a bridal shower which I gratefully accepted.

With my mother and three out of my four bridesmaids living out-of-town it would have been difficult for them to organize and my best friend that is the other bridesmaid has enough to help with since she's the only one who lives here.

With that being said once she started planning it, she called me for names of people that my mother would like to invite and mentioned that she was already at 80 guests. That would be 80 women that I probably have never met! Women who, for the most part, won't even be invited to the wedding. I was a little surprised and doubted that these people would be interested attending a party in my honor and give gifts if they didn't know me but I've been assured that this is okay and that she's been to countless showers that she didn't attend weddings for.

And I still have to give her the names of my female friends and family (remember who large my guest list is)!

So I've decided that I'm just going to go with the flow and allow her to plan this massive shower that means a lot to her and hopefully people come!

It won't be until next spring but I should probably get around to creating my traditional registry.*


*I am planning on have a Honeymoon Registry as well for people that don't mind the nontraditional, since we don't really require a lot of 'stuff'...but that's for another post.

Thursday, May 27, 2010

Managing my budget

I originally planned to have a wedding for $10,000...yeah that is so not going to happen. I am currently working very hard on keeping it below $15000.

With my 3 major expenses being variable costs depended on the number guests that attend it will be awhile before I will know exactly what I will spend so I've decided to play it conservative and budget on 200 attending (There are 230 possible guests but 30 are children which I plan to negotiate pricing on).

I can see how easy it would be to spend $20,000+, as I'm really don't have a lot of expenses; wearing my sister's dress, mother-in-law to be is sewing the bridesmaid gowns and groomsmen vests, my mister's cousin is a professional photographer and has offered to do the pictures for free, and my best friend and I are baking the cake(s) and doing a lot of DIY decor.

And technically of the $15000 budget my parent's have offered to pay for the food, which will probably be around 1/3rd of it, and since I live in Manitoba where pre-wedding socials are very common I will be throwing one of those a few months prior to the wedding date and my goal is to raise enough money to pay for the alcohol. So that only leaves my mister and I with approximately $7500 to look after which is still below the original $10000 budget.

I just wish I could actually have the wedding I want and pay that amount I want!

Well here's to a year of penny pinching planning! Luckily I'm an accountant by trade so I hope I can manager a simple budget.

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Shoes for the Guys

My mister does not have great feet. He wears custom orthotics and does stretches every morning because his arches are too tight and he will be in pain otherwise.

Because of this his favorite footwear are New Balance Runners...stylish they are not but they work for his feet and I don't have to listen to him complain so I'm good.

But these are not appropriate footwear for the wedding day, or so I thought, until my best friend found out that they have a casual/retro line of shoes that look a lot like Converse shoes, which I do think are completely acceptable for wedding day footwear.

Personally I like these:



But I could be convinced that these are better:


{via New Balance Toronto}


We'll see what works for him and his four groomsmen but when I told him and his best friend that New Balance was still an option today, they were very excited. Nothing like catering to my husband to be...hello married life.

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

I'm a little behind but I don't care

It's almost weekly that I see a new 'real wedding' featured on one of the blogs I read with the color combination of Yellow and Gray but regardless of the fact that my wedding will be a year from now I have decided to go with this color combo myself. I think it's gorgeous and lets be honest, just because this combo will be pretty common by my date in the wedding blog world it will not be so in my city. I don't live in California or New York where fashion moves quickly. I live in the province of Manitoba and purple seems to be a staple for many weddings in the last decade, or at least at the ones I've attended or been a bridesmaid for, so I think I'm safe.

Monday, May 24, 2010

Dilemma #1 - To invite or Not to invite

It's been over a month and a half since I've been engaged and yet I haven't managed to blog regularly. Something I did not think was going to be a problem for me since I've managed to write about all the things I would do when I finally got engaged for so long. I think what it is, is a writer's overload. I didn't know where to start since I have so many things on the go.

I've booked the venue, Great Woods Park, I have a dress, and solidified a date, June 18th 2011.

But alas, my first dilemma...who makes it onto the guest list.


First, I come from a large family, a large and close family, so I knew going into this that I would not be having one of those "less then a 100 guests" weddings. I didn't, however, expect to exceed 250 possible guests but I did.

Second, I took for granted my mister's smaller family would mean a smaller guest list on his side, and so did he. Currently we are at 70 adults & 11 children for him.

Third, I work in a relatively small office of 25 people. 25 people that I actually like and consider friends for the most part. Unfortunately 25 + guests brings the list up another 50 which I just can not justify as I'm trying to maintain a reasonable budget and my venue, as well as the food & alcohol, is a variable cost based on the number of guests rather then a fixed cost like many other sites would have been.

Since I can't cut out our families from the guest lists and we were pretty particular about who counted as close friends, I'm stuck putting my colleagues on a waiting list. I've decided to invite my three employers, as well as 4 other women + their significant others that I work closely with but everyone else is in limbo. I'm currently still holding out hope that I will either figure something out in my budget or I'll find out that more then the average 30% of invitees will decline and I'll have room.

I am struggling with the idea of a B-list of guests though. Is that poor etiquette? I won't be sending out invites until a few months before the wedding date so I have time to decide but it is one that is bothering me.

And who knows, maybe none of these people actually care if they are invited and I'm just stressing myself out for nothing!