Things Are HAPPENING!

Woah long lull between blogposts. I apologize to anyone who actually reads this thing.

Alright, so the biggest news of all....

The invites went to print!!


Ahhhhh....there are mixed emotions. Those things are my babies! My blood, my sweat....well you get the idea. Sending them to the printer was a wild mix of relief and scariness all at the same time. I know they're in good hands, but I'm at a point now where I'm so anxious to get them back to see them for myself. And fawn over them. And pet them.    ....anyone who knows me knows I'm not joking.

The other thing that followed this up was the biggo order of envelopes and other paper goodies that go along with the invites. Not a big deal to most, but after eyeing this stuff for literally a year now and finally pulling the trigger, I've suddenly had doubts of "what if I don't like these anymore?" despite the fact that I've ordered paper swatches and samples galore. I know I'll love them, but it's all starting to come together!

Which brings me to our most recent (yet-not-so-recent-anymore-since-I-never-blog) trip up to TC over Memorial Weekend. MAN was that a good weekend! My sister was in town and we took her all over the place to see everything from the rehearsal dinner spot, to the reception site, to the church, to another food tasting (still delicious food, don't you worry), to a couple restaurants that we love up there (Red Ginger for the win!), and even stopped by the hair salon. Yes, we got into that much detail. I felt like a little kid dragging my mom by the wrist around at school being like "Now look at THIS! Now wait, look what we did HERE! Do you like it do you like it??"

Luckily, she ate it all up and was equally (if not more) excitable about the whole situation. We are AMPED! We even fit a little wine tasting up on Old Mission for good measure:

Ahhh... 2 lads :)

The other side effect to our weekend was the realization that we're 3 months away from our wedding. YIKES! We actually have to start making decisions on things, which is a weird concept for us since we've been engaged for almost two years now at this point. Things that people originally were like "Oh you have time to get back to us on that" were now saying to us "So what have you decided on that?"

Oops. Guess this thing is really happening :)

So I have many more updates to share, including my gorgeous shower that happened at the end of May and the fun that's about to happen with invite assembly (including an invite assembly party next weekend - yep, we get kind of crazy around here!). Much, much, MUCH more to come friends!

Adventures in Save the Dates

Last weekend, Allen and I were able to finally finish our first crafty wedding project. Success! While it was definitely nice to see it all come together, there were definitely a few bumps in the road. Since I am not even close to an expert when it comes to all things print and crafty, I am happy to share my mishaps with all of you to avoid in the future.

First - the design. As always, never an easy process for me. I started out sketching, mostly trying to work on the "logo" for our wedding. I wanted to have an image that we could carry through all of the pieces of our wedding (with some variations), and finally came up with something that was both typographically and aesthetically pleasing (to me), with about 4 different designs and layouts. Then, I started working with photos that I thought represented the Traverse City area a bit - I wanted people to look at the save the dates and get excited about the possibility of going up north for the wedding. The final product turned out like this:

(Under the 9.10.11 it says "traverse city, mi" and on the back is the hotel and website information)

My mom had seen the photo on one of the sites I had looked at (I used istockphoto.com for this particular photo) and was immediately on board. Once I showed it to Allen, he was in love and instantly wanted a glass of wine. Success! I decided on the square format based on some free leftover envelopes I had from a job at work, and definitely couldn't throw those babies away! They were a clear vellum so the recipient could see the image through the envelope. Love.

However, the full layout of the card was actually on a 5 x 7" card. I did this because I used a site called Vista Print to print the cards. They're one of my favorite sites to use, especially for down and dirty printing - even though their options for specs can be a bit limiting, the printing always turns out really nicely. So when we got them, they looked like this:

(We need a new camera - sorry for the blurriness)

This meant that Allen quickly became my go-to cutter buddy, and he used my paper cutter to cut them down to size. I had this from previous art projects in school, but you can get them for super cheap at Michael's, and they come with different cutters so you can perf, score, etc.

The next step was inserting into the envelopes (an easy while-watching-Jeopardy activity), and then we affixed the return address labels. I purchased a return address stamp from Paper Source to save on cramping and cheesy return labels. I figured that since we'll be sending out a lot of wedding-related mail in the near future it would be worth it. Top that off with a handy $10-off promotion, and I grabbed this guy for $25 worth of hand cramp savers:

You can change out ink colors, and if we ever move, we can replace the plate with a new address

Then we stamped our return address onto some round sticker labels to use as our sealers (saving precious taste buds and preventing tongue paper cuts - always a plus):

Ta da! Love those envelopes.

The final step was addressing these suckers. This is where we had some problems. Again, I used my trusty Paper Source to find some fancy address labels, and ended up finding vellum labels that would allow for the wine image to be seen through the envelope without a chunky label covering everything up. Amazing! This would have all been great, except that the template that I downloaded from PS was incorrect. Twice. I set up my template in InDesign to allow for use of a scripty font that I had used on the invites. Due to the vellum, it was difficult to see on the actual label sheets where the die cut of the label fell. So it wasn't until we were pulling the labels off to affix to the invites that we actually realized that half the labels on each sheet printed off-center or completely off the label.

Epic fail. This would be where I would show you a picture of this monstrosity, but we were so frustrated in trying to re-work them that I never got around to it. After trying to re-layout the labels for the cut off addresses, and after going through way more labels than we had intended, we ended up getting the save the dates out in two batches - first were the ones that were at least still mailable (even if they were off-center), and the second drop was of all the people from the first batch that their labels didn't really meet my standards. The second batch went out about a week later after procuring more labels. So, if you got your save the date late, that's why! And even the second batch still didn't turn out 100% the way I would have preferred. But, it's done, and lesson learned - measure the template yourself, and get labels with a clear die cut so you can see mistakes right away. Done and done for next time. At least it wasn't for the invitations.

Overall, despite some serious address label frustrations, I am really, really happy with how they turned out. I think they portray the overall tone of the wedding with the bay and the wine (naturally), and I'm proud of the work we put into them together. Hopefully everyone else enjoys them as much as I do!

Checking off the To-Do's

My my my, it has been a while.

But can I just tell you - we have been so, SO productive!! Through the holidays, the time off of school (which I'm now back into), and everything in between. Productive, productive, productive.

A few highlights of items checked off the to-do lists:

• Bridesmaid Dresses - check! Since we have such big bridal parties, I'm letting my lovely ladies pick their own style of dress. They'll all be from the same manufacturer, the same length, and the same color, but the style is all completely their own. I want my ladies not only to be comfortable in their dresses, but if they feel comfortable they will look even more fabulous than they already are. Plus, I love how everyone is going to look unique. Woo!
• Groomsmen Tuxes - check! We were able to get our account set up with Men's Wearhouse, and all of the men will be looking dapper in their tuxes. The guys have it so easy - they just get measured and it's done.
• MY Dress - check! Yep, you heard right. I have a dress. But that's all you're going to hear about it ;)
• Wedding website - check! I was finally able to take some time and update our wedding website with all of the event, travel, and accommodation information for our guests. Hopefully it's helpful for people, but I definitely enjoyed putting it together. Check it out at: www.allenandkaitlyn.com.
• Registry - check! Well, at least one part of it. We did a partial registry at Bed Bath & Beyond, but will also be hitting up Crate & Barrel in February and possibly Macy's if necessary. At first I wasn't sure how much Allen was going to enjoy registering, but once he got that scanner gun in his hand I think he felt a new sense of power. I think we both got a little scanner-happy at some points (everyone needs a wine refrigerator, right?) so we may be doing some editing once we get our other registries taken care of.
• Wedding bands - check! A super easy night out resulted in us walking out of the mall in under 45 minutes with our wedding bands. I think we both just went in with clear ideas of what we wanted, and it was just quick as can be. We have them at the house, and it's fun for me to just take a quick peak at them whenever :) So fun.
• Honeymoon flights - check! We were able to secure our vacation time for the year, and are now booked for our TWO WEEK honeymoon! We'll be flying into Barcelona, spending a few days there, then fly into Rome, spend a few days there, and then spend the second week touring around Italy. I don't remember ever taking a full two week vacation (at least not since I was much younger), so I am really excited for our adventure!
• Save the Dates - almost check! I've been working on our save the dates for a while now, and after many, many, many drafts, revisions, theme and color changes, format changes, etc. I think we finally got our favorite nailed down. I really, really love them. I'll be sure to post more up once they finally go out, but I'll be releasing the art to the printer this weekend and putting them together in the coming weeks. But MAN! If I was this indecisive and nit-picky over our save the dates, I can't even imagine how I'm going to be on our invites.

It's been really great and a huge relief getting a lot of these items taken care of. I'm so excited to keep getting things checked off!

A Very Happy Birthday

Wishing a happy, happy birthday to the love of my life today!

We celebrated this weekend by going up to Traverse City, and then playing hookie from work today and relaxing around the house. While we did manage to get quite a bit of wedding planning done up in Traverse City (secured our DJ, taste testing for caterer, meeting with the priest, putting in a bunch of deposits), we definitely managed to balance work with play. We hit up one of our new favorite restaurants up there - Red Ginger. And when I say that it was the best sushi I think I've ever had, that is quite an understatement. We were ready to lick our plates! I can't wait to go back again :)

It was a very productive and fun weekend for both of us. It definitely solidified why we're having our wedding up there - the entire Traverse City area is so fantastic, clean, filled with happy and kind people, and a ton of amazing food and wine! I am so excited for even more trips up there, but more importantly, I can't wait to marry this guy :) Happy birthday baby!

THE update

Alright guys, the blog post you have all been waiting for. 

We have a venue.

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!

Ok, WOO again! So much to update on! After much, much, MUCH searching, and then re-searching, and then going back to our original thoughts, and then wiping all of those clean and making a fresh start of it, we have a venue. This was, by far, the most painful part (so far) in the wedding planning process for us, but I can honestly say that we are so happy with the decision we've made, and it's going to be a blast for everyone.

My dad said one thing to me during this whole process that really stuck with me: "You know, you're having all of these people come up north for your wedding - don't you want them to feel like they're up north? Or feel like they're on vacation?"

And BAM! The tone was set for our wedding, almost instantly. I couldn't get that thought out of my head. Then my mom stepped in with those thoughts in mind, and with all of her awesome connections and creativity, found us the link (and the people) that made that thought turn into reality.

Where is the venue, you ask? Well, it's still in Traverse City (downtown, actually). It's a private property that sits right on Grand Traverse Bay with about 200 ft of waterfront. Yes, we're rocking the outdoor reception. Yes, that's scary, but I love it. There is no other way to bring everyone up north and make them feel like they're up north without actually feeling all of that - being outdoors, being on the water, hanging out with the people you love, watching the sunset, and then partying the rest of the night away :)

Also with this venue officially solidifies our date. It was actually already solidified with the church, but now that the venue is booked, it's official official. And that date is...

September 10, 2011

Mark your calendars, it's going to be legen...wait for it...dary. 

Do you know what this means?! This means that the date is settled, we have a venue, we have a caterer, we have a bar, we have a church, and now we can start booking all of the really super fun stuff like photographers and DJs, we can start talking flowers, do invites, everything else that we've been looking forward to! How awesome is that?! That's what this weekend will be dedicated to - we're heading up north with Allen's parents to get as much of that done as possible. Also, I will take more pictures of the reception site. I can't wait for you all to see it :)

I feel like we're finally making progress on all of this now. We're checking things off the master list (and trust me, it's a long one). Finally we get to breathe a sigh of relief, and all of the really super fun stuff can start coming together. I can't wait to share the rest of our progress with all of you!!

Things going on

Why hello, strangers.

I have definitely been MIA lately (my apologies, for those who actually read this thing), but life has been busy busy busy! A few of the highlights:

School: I'll be done with my third semester of school by next Tuesday. YESSSSSSSS! I'm in serious need of a break, and luckily because I busted my butt for the past two months, I'll be rewarded with July and August off of school. I'm really excited, but I know this means I'll be dragging myself back to school in September. Temper tantrums will be involved.

Fun Stuff We've Been Doing: This past weekend was especially fun for me because we got to have our first Top Chef cooking night with Elaine and Paul. We've decided, since we're all fans of the show, that we're each going to take turns cooking fabulous meals, and then we will eat the meal while watching that week's episodes. I kicked off last week by cooking fillets with blue cheese butter on top, tomato and goat cheese tarts, and asparagus. It was straight yummy, don't be too jealous.

Another fun activity this weekend was our pig smoke-out with a bunch of the crew. Here's Jeff with his slab of pig:

Again, yummy. Luckily, there's more pig for us to cook up, so we'll probably have another event soon. Oh, and here are the flip cup champs after their victory on Saturday:

so gangsta

Fun Summer Plans: Allen and I have many fun plans coming up in the next few months, which I am super excited about (as soon as I can get out of school). A few tidbits:

• Over the 4th we're going to head to St. Joseph's with a few of our friends that we rented a cottage with 
• Trips planned for Traverse City, Chicago, and Vegas
• We have our 3-Day walk coming up in August (yikes!), with plenty of training and a fundraising event splashed in there as well
• Finally, my old next door neighbor and sudo little brother is getting married (yaaaay!) and so my family and I - sister included, yay! - will be up in Grand Rapids celebrating that craziness in August

Busy busy busy!

Wedding: So one little step of progress that we have made in our wedding planning is that we already completed our marriage class! Finally, one thing checked off the list. It was done through a local church, and it was actually really well put together, I have to admit. I really didn't know what to expect going in, but the one thing that I appreciated was that the speakers had an understanding of where the couples were today and not 50 years ago. Overall, it wasn't a bad experience, but it was 5 1/2 hours long so we're definitely glad we have that out of the way :)

Ok I promise, soon, eventually, I will have an official "this is what's happening with our wedding" update for everyone. I just don't want to put anything out there until it is signed, sealed, and deposited. We're close. We'rethisclose. Just have to get the paperwork in close. After that, I'll be happy and willing to dish :)

It's been so long!

I'm sorry I've been MIA! I finally just finished up my second semester of grad school this week, so needless to say, I've been busy. On top of that, work has been super extra busy, so I have pretty much taken the opportunity to decompress for the past two days. Today begins my productivity once again. So what's been happening, you ask? Well you probably didn't ask but I'll tell you anyway.

So, I created a website for one of my final projects for school. Well, Google Sites was kind enough to help (seriously, so easy too!) For those of you who were kind enough to vote on my poll (and let's be honest, there weren't many of you), I thank you! You actually made my project look somewhat legit. Basically, I was studying the affect that the Internet has had on the Television industry - including advertising, cable companies, and broadcasting companies. Needless to say, Internet is winning. So my question to everyone was whether or not they would consider cancelling their cable service because the Internet has all of their shows anyway. Check out the results on my webpage: http://sites.google.com/site/televisionandnewmedia/ Visit, but do not critique, cuz it's already turned in and there's no going back.

Other fun things: We got to celebrate one of Lisa's last weekends as a single lady! Chicago was our city of choice for the event, and to say we had fun would be a clear understatement. We had a BLAST and got treated like VIPs everywhere we went. It was so much fun. We went through a company called VIP Bachelorette, which included a limo van thing to take us around, exclusive specials at a few bars, express entry, and no cover anywhere we went. Eight kinds of awesomeness. Some of my favorite pics of the weekend, thanks to Bridget's amazing photog skills throughout the evening:

All the ladies

Lisa & I

Bridget & I

Molly, Lisa and I

Lisa & Bridget

All in all, a great time was had by everyone. The whole weekend we kept saying how lucky we all are because all of our guys have such great girls in their lives for us to hang with :) And a few toasts were made to Molly for her mad match-making skillz!

Other updates: Did my first pass at wedding dress shopping, wasn't super fantastic. None of the dresses really stood out to me and I think it may have been a little too soon to go. We'll try again eventually. We're also having a wedding coordinator up north help us in our search for the perfect venue. We have one that is in the back of our minds as a standby, but we want to see what other options are out there as well. Hopefully we'll be able to find something that works for us!

The One That Got Away

So our trip up to TC this weekend proved to be not as productive as I would have really hoped for. We went to a lot of appointments and met with a lot of people who had a lot of things to say, and came up with this conclusion:

We got nothin'.

We saw the only 3 venues in TC that can hold all of the guests we're inviting, and the one venue that had been the forerunner for me this whole time is really not our best option. The other two are...well, "eh" puts it lightly for me. The one I liked the best, the Traverse City Opera House, is the one that I am now going to refer to as "The One That Got Away."

 bye bye Opera House :(

There are a lot of reasons behind this. First and foremost, it's expensive. Secondly, we didn't really get the greatest customer service from the people/vendors that we would have to use to go there, and that is just the makings of a impending bad experience in my opinion. Yes, it's gorgeous, and yes, it would be fabulous, but I (and the rest of my family and Allen) am big on the customer service aspect. If you don't feel like the venue is going to do everything humanly possible to make your day extraordinary, time to go elsewhere.

So we're kind of starting from scratch now. I'm still hooked on Traverse City, but we have to look at other options that might be hiding around us. I'm trying not to get discouraged on any of this, but I have to admit it's pretty frustrating when you have your heart set in one place, and then realize that it really just isn't the best thing for you. So we move on, hopefully with more stellar results.

Lack of Style Guide

A lot of people have been asking me lately about the "style" of our wedding - colors, flowers, centerpieces, look and feel, overall atmostphere (do we want it to be vintage? classic? elegant? contemporary? modern?). Do I have inspiration boards made up? No. Should I? Maybe?

The answer is this: I have no clue.

I can tell you what I think our colors are going to be, and what I think I like for certain elements (flowers and the like), and I can tell you that narrowing down all the beautiful options I've seen on every other wedding blog is incredibly overwhelming, but other than that I'm a little bit lost right now. There are so many options!!!! It's so hard to pin point - especially when we barely have our venue determined at this point. (Sidenote: We should hopefully have that determined after next weekend, when Allen, my parents and I all go up north to finally pick where the reception will be - yay! More on that later hopefully). I have a feeling that the venue will really drive a lot of what our overall style is going to look like.

But the other issue is that I would like for things to be uniquely us, but it seems that everything that is "uniquely us" in the random sporadic ideas that I have tend to not be that original. As soon as I find something I really like and think is cool and different, I read a blog about someone who has done that already. In all honesty, I think we're all just copycats at some point or another, but it would be nice to have a piece of the wedding that just belongs to us and no one else. I hope in the next year or so we'll figure out what that one thing is.

Speaking of blogs, one of my favorites (Clover & Bee) had a quote from one of their featured brides in their Real Wedding section that really hit home for me:

“The truth is, we’re not people who often consider our style. Our most consistent style is probably cute and nerdy, with aspirations to being elegant and sophisticated. (We’re perfectly happy with the former, and occasionally achieve the latter.) That said, we did want this once-in-a-lifetime event to include certain elements—lots of natural light, elements of both the outdoors and the city, and the beautiful jewel tones found abundantly in our culture. Most of all, we wanted our wedding to look and feel unique, rather than just being another event in a rectangular box in a hotel that could be located anywhere.” 

Budgeting

I am crazy frustrated with trying to find a reception spot. Granted, we haven't looked into that many places just yet, but on our first excursion up to Traverse City we saw one venue that I just drop-dead fell in love with. This would normally be an awesome thing, except of course, that my eyes are bigger than my budget and it's looking slightly unaffordable at the moment.

Speaking of budget, can we talk for a split second about how much I hate to budget?! My financially-savvy fiance and I are crunching numbers (ok, let's be honest, he's crunching all the numbers) to make sure this is all affordable so we don't go into bankruptcy in our first year of marriage. Responsible? Yes. Slightly eye-opening at what we can't afford? Absolutely.

That being said, we are extremely lucky that we have some beloved family members who have offered their services for a few aspects of the wedding process (his mom is a master cake-baker so she's got that on lock, and my aunt is a florist/artist/extraordinaire that is generous enough to offer her services as well). This will save us in a lot of areas, but even with this huge amount of help, I think I need to come back to some realistic views of how this wedding is going to go.

This is my "reel it in" pep talk to myself, in case you can't tell.

My dad keeps coming into my head when I start thinking about the wedding and all the fun, cool things that I would like to do with it. His favorite saying: "You and your sister, you have champagne taste on a beer budget."


I hate when he's right. Hopefully we'll be able to find a happy medium somewhere.

The Engagement Party

So I'm straight up convinced that Allen and I have the most generous and amazing family and friends in the world. How I know this is because of the mass amount of people that showed up to the engagement party that my sister Erin (aka maid of honor) and friends Jill and Erin threw for us. I'll say one thing - I had such a blast seeing everyone! Even if that's the smallest indication of how awesomely fun our wedding is going to be, I'm all set.

There was food (oh MAN was there food - a chocolate fountain even!), lots of Traverse City wine to pay tribute to our wedding location, a slide show (if I can get my hands on it, I'll post it), a trivia game, and my parents gave Allen and I a beautiful set of Waterford champagne glasses to use for our wedding toast. We're going to do our best to not break them before the wedding, cuz that's how we tend to roll.

There were many great photos that were taken that evening, but there are two that are my favs:

We call this one, "The Physical Challenge"

Yep, that's Jess proposing to me to earn extra points during the trivia game. She did a fabulous job because I said yes.

On my mom's Facebook (yes, she has a Facebook), she captioned this one "We were four...now we're five!" aaaaaand I was pretty much about to cry. I did tell her that my dad is seriously going to have to work on smiling for photos if our photographers at the wedding are ever going to stand a chance at a good family photo. He did pretty good in this one though :) Also, my sister has inspired me to tan...a lot...before the wedding.

Another big huge ginormous thank you to the Erins, Jill, and my parents for helping out and for putting everything on for us. Love you! :)

First Traverse City visit

So we haven't gotten super far on plans yet for the wedding - somehow this whole working full time and going to school thing is getting in the way! However, we did manage to head up north for a weekend in October to scope out some potential ceremony and reception areas.

One small roadblock: Apparently the Catholic churches up north aren't exactly keen on marrying "outsiders". If you're not a resident of that particular city, or a consistent member of a particular church, you tend to be last in line for picking wedding dates to get married. I was previously warned about this by a few friends who have been married through the Catholic church, but the idea of getting married up north is something that I've always wanted so we were determined to at least take a shot at it.

So, after being turned down a few times (ok, like 8-9 times) we finally found a church that will marry us without any objection. WOO! Mission accomplished! In addition, we are able to take our marriage classes through the Detroit Diocese so luckilly we won't have to drive up north every weekend for a few weeks to get all of that done.
One thing checked off the list!! More details to come on that obviously, as soon as we can get a few other details squared away, but at least we're making progress somewhere!

PS: A huuuuuuuuuuuuge THANK YOU to my amazing cousin Laura for letting us stay with her in Harbor Springs that weekend :) You are the best hostess in the whole wide world!