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!

Introducing Urban Blue

Alright everyone, I'd like to introduce you to our wedding reception site, affectionately called "Urban Blue":

Photo courtesy of Orchestrated Grace

Now it doesn't look like much now, but believe me, it's going to be fabulous. Picture in your mind a crisp white tent spanning the lawn you see above, with tables overlooking the sunset over Grand Traverse Bay (if you're going off of this picture, the beach would be all the way down at the bottom past the picture). Isn't it awesome?! Eeeeeeee! This whole space is like a blank canvas just waiting for us, I am so excited!

There are a ton of perks and great things about this location. One thing I love is the small cottage that you see at the top of the picture. It will be rented to us for the week prior to the wedding, perfect for our early arrival for preparations (but sorry, not open to everyone else!).

And this is probably the best perk ever: Guests can walk (or stumble, if you prefer) out to the beach, walk down the beach to their left, and about a half block later, they arrive at one of the hotels we'll be reserving rooms at! We'll be offering up other hotels to people as well of course, but how could you not take advantage of that?!

So many great were accomplished this weekend - meeting with our tent and equipment rental company, meeting with photographers (nothing decided officially on that yet), meetings at the church, and meetings with hotels in the area. Let the planning begin!

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!!

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.