Oh My...

As far as our guests are concerned, the wedding was FABULOUS.

My opinion on the matter however, is slightly less chipper. SO many things went wrong it's ridiculous.

Here are just a few things that went wrong  (I will elaborate more on the day later).

1. Most of the flowers died, and my bouquet froze in the hotel fridge. My MIL was in charge of doing all of the flowers, and had to scatter around town looking for replacements the Friday before, and the day of the wedding.
2. It was pouring cats and dogs off and on ALL day, with periodic breaks of sunshine. None of which occurred DURING the ceremony (the sunshine that is), but 30 minutes afterwards. Our ceremony ended up being inside.
3. The curl in my hair didn't even last until the hair/makeup girls left, so it looked like crap for the wedding.
4. They had to re-do my mom's hair THREE times because they could not do what she was asking for, even though they claimed they could.
5. Lots of things were missing at the reception-including 90% of my guestbook pages, so only 20ish people filled out pages out of 75.
6. The photographer was 4+ hours late. Wasn't really sure when he was going to show up, one day he said 10:45am, then Friday he said 1:00pm. He showed up at 4:30. Wedding started at 5:30pm and we still had to do bridal party photos.
7. All of the photos were VERY rushed.
8. We didn't get ANY detail photos taken, which were very important to me because there were so many little details I wanted captured. Luckily one of my bridesmaids does photography as a hobby and took a few pictures for me of our rings and stuff before our actual photographer showed up! THANKS ASHLEY!
9. The wedding cake had black frosting, and most of our guests mouths and teeth were nasty after eating it.
10. The cake was gross, looked nice, but gross (at least I was not impressed).
11. It was also melting, and the cake topper was SINKING into the top of the cake. They lady added NO supports whatsoever. Our cake topper weighs a pound!! And she knew this beforehand.
12. Cake Massacre! The venue ruined the top of our cake. It looked like they put it in the box, and threw it on the floor. When we got back to the hotel, I opened it to find my cake topper smashed down inside the middle of the cake, and the cake itself spread all over the inside of the box. No anniversary cake for us!
13. The venue forgot a lot of small details that they said they would provide... like table numbers! Luckily Zac's brother's wife took care of it!

Here are a few guest photos until I get some better quality ones! (The quality of these is too terrible to make any bigger! SORRY!)

And sorry for the wonky picture arrangement....blogger is not my friend today....




Taking pictures before the ceremony. Notice lack of curl in hair?!




Seriously...my hair looks like crap.




After our bridal  party entrance...




 

Taking more pictures, while hiding from the rain.

You can see behind us where we were SUPPOSED to get married! BOO!

The surprise part of our first dance!

The cake!!!! ^^

 That's all for now! Stay tuned for more!



Three More Days!

I can't wait to share more info about the wedding with everyone! I want to post more, but I still want some things to remain a surprise for family and guests!

3 more days! Oy. It's supposed to rain all day today, and then not again until Saturday. Of course our wedding day would be sandwiched in between 2 days of sunshine and warmth! Blah.

Have you ever heard people say that rain on your wedding brings good luck? Well, I have.. at least 300 times this week already. If one more person says that to me, I'm bound to go postal. I might sound crazy...but here is my logic.

If good luck is:
- My hair not holding it's style and falling out because of the rain (which it ALWAYS does)
- not having anywhere to take decent pictures inside
- everything being extremely muddy
- the fact that our ceremony is OUTSIDE and will have to be moved into the huge ballroom
- all the money spent on things to decorate outside

Then it will be the BESTEST LUCK EVAR. *sigh* I know everyone says that on your actual wedding day, that stuff won't matter.. Well, you don't know me then! haha. Everything else up until this point has been pretty sucky, so those things are the only things that I really wanted to go smoothly! Here's hoping!

Zac picked up his suit yesterday. He said it felt very weird because the pants were poofy and didn't fit the same way he was used to. He sent me this little picture as a teaser.



I'm so excited to see him and the guys all dressed up. I LOVE these shoes.

I WILL be back to post lots more after the wedding...until then, I have much to do before becoming a Mrs!!

The Deets Part 5: Fauxto Booth props

I'm a little hesitant to post pictures of the props I made, because I kinda want them to be a surprise at the wedding! But, I don't think very many of our guests read my blog.. so I think it's ok to share.

Everything was made from items purchased at Hobby Lobby (which I am addicted to like crack! Why must they sell such awesome stuff?!).

Props in this photo include items made from: wood- the star wand (which still needs ribbon) and the pirate mask (premade from HobLob, I just painted it); stiff felt sheets- mustaches and the two pairs of red retro glasses, as well as the black ball on the green microphone; sheets of foam paper stuff- weiner, kanye west blue glasses, broken heart, giant mouths and pirate patch; the two masks were also acquired form HobLob, one was painted silver with red feathers glued on, and the other was painted black first, then covered with red and black feathers.

There is also an abundance of old bead necklaces from one boobie showing or another...

Two empty picture frames for people to.. well, frame themselves with and two chalkboards (one not pictured that I just painted last night on an old piece of canvas).  The red and black chalkboard is from Wal Mart and  was about $3 and came unfinished. It's pretty much layered pieces of MDF, and is VERY rough on the edges... so if you buy something like this from Wal Mart, make sure you sand it first. The chalkboard paint and red paint I already had...

Here's a close up of the two masks. They had strings on them so you could put them on your face, but we cut those off and glued 12 inch dowel rods painted black on them instead.

The giant lips are from HobLob too, from the Valentine's Day section.. they were a random purchase (only $1) and I thought it would be funny.


Ain't he just darlin?!

 The foam sheets of "paper" came in a pack of 30-40 pages, and cost about $10. I still have tons left. We probably used maybe 5 sheet's max from the pack.

The stiff felt  sheets were $0.50-$0.75 each (I can't remember exactly), and we bought 3 (red, black and brown). It's perfect for the mustaches, and holds up nicely. No need to glue the shapes to cardboard for support.

The feathers came in a package and cost about $2.00, and we still have TONS left. Masks were $1.99 each...paint I already had in various colors. The pirate mask was $1.00 and so was the wooden star. The pack of dowels came 12 to a pack for about $2.00 or so.  The two frames I already had, but I got from Goodwill awhile back for a buck or two each...

All together, we spent less than $25 on items for props!!! That's great! I'm pretty sure we had a coupon or two as well, so the cost could very well have been under $20, and I still have a lot of stuff left over for future projects!

Twelve Days...

... 'Til I am a Mrs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

TWELVE friggen days. Where did the time go? It seems like not to long ago it was late July and we had just gotten engaged. Why must time go by so quickly???

There is still much to be done. Mostly little things... but of course they are the most tedious.

Programs still need to be made. Vows need to be finalized. The program for the photobooth needs some fine tuning and we need to make little cards with information on where to find the pictures after the wedding, and also where people can upload them! Doesn't seem like much... but we are perfectionists... and if the graphics don't look good they ain't goin on the stuff!

I created a shutterfly account and site for our guests to upload the pictures they take... and since we opted out of printing the fauxto booth pictures out AT the wedding, we are going to upload those on here too. (the site is password protected for now)

The Friday before the wedding, I have a ton of errands to run... hopefully I can have someone else do a few of them.. but if not, I am going to be busy busy!

Wedding Etiquette- The RSVP

RSVP. répondez s'il vous plaît. Respond please or please respond.

OR

OMFG Whyyyy has only 1/4 of the people invited said they are coming! What are the other 75% dooooiiiiing?!?!!?

I never understand why people can't RSVP to things. Is it because they can't come? Don't want to come? Don't yet know if they are going to come? Forgot?

Whatever it is, it is most definitely, without a doubt RUDE to NOT  RSVP. Whether you are coming or not. Especially to weddings.

I'm not a big fan of spending a lot of money on wedding invitations... but some people do. We bought ours from Michael's and printed on them ourselves. I probably spent about $100 on invitations with Michael's coupons, and we wasted a whole bunch trying to get the printer to print properly. We also still have almost a whole box of 30 left over.

What was my point there? Oh! Some people spend a lot of money on wedding invitations, only to have about 20% of them thrown right into the trash or "lost." Think about that when you get one next time and toss it in the garbage right away! Someone spent a lot of time and potentially money on that! Maybe there's a little blood too from all the paper cuts...
Anyhoozit.

The bottom line is... If you get an invitation with an 'RSVP by' date, do it. Most people opt to send the RSVP envelopes with a stamp already on them, so all you have to do is write your name and the name of your guest(s) and put it in your mailbox!

OHH!! And that little line, the mysterious M_______________. The M is there for a reason and so is the line. The M is there for you to begin writing Mr./Mrs./Miss whatever... followed by the names of ALL of the guests attending. I know there's never enough space, but write all of the names anyway.. it's ok if they aren't all on the line.. write them underneath! Hell, use the back of the card to write the names, just put them SOMEWHERE. And PLEASE do NOT send response cards back with no name on them.. how do you expect people to know who the flying monkey butts you are?!

The 'Maybe'
The maybe is.. well. Rude AND sucky. Here's the dealio. Most wedding venues/caterers (and this is if you are NOT catering your own wedding) (why would you do that?) require that you give them a final headcount at least 2 weeks in advance. Some may be in as little as a week but it all depends on the size of the venue and the types of events they cater to. So! If you say, "I don't know if we are going to come yet. Put us down as 'maybe'" The bride has to guestimate how many people to add to her list. You probably won't be the only maybe, so let's just say that for every 100 people, there's probably 10 "maybes"  Our venue cost is inclusive of quite a few things. Venue, catering, open bar for 3.5 hours, DJ and cake for $88 per person for the meal package we chose. So $88 x 10= $880! That's a lot of money for a "maybe!"

I would say, just to be safe, if someone says they are a "maybe" tell them to let you know two and a half weeks out. If they are still a "maybe" then, count them out.

They also say that you should expect at least 20% of the people you invite to decline the invitation, and 15-20% to ignore your free stamp and very important deadline. A good estimate for out of town guests accepting is probably 55%. Of course, this depends on the relative wealth of your invited guests and age. Meaning, if they po, they prolly ain't comin! If they old and crippled, they prolly ain't comin! If they old AND po, they definitely ain't comin!

Sorry....

We invited about 130 people to our wedding with a goal of no more than 100 actually showing up. Our RSVP by date was March 25th and since then, we have received about 76 yes's, 15ish No's and 10ish "maybe's."  Most of our guests are out of towners (not in the Tri-State area of Virginia, DC or Maryland).

So...(and I didn't do these calculations until AFTER writing all of the other stuff!! Creeeepyyyy)
 58% of our invited guests said YES.
 8% said MAYBE
 11% said NO
 23% have not responded <--------FAAAAAAILLLLLLLLL

Pretty close to the guestimations "they" set out.

Who are "they" anyway? I dunno.

The Deets Part 4: The Fauxto Booth

I REALLLLLLLLY wanted a photo booth at our wedding no matter what venue we chose. But I'll be darned if renting one isn't ridiculously expensive!!! Holy crap. The cheapest one I found was around $500 for 3 hours but you still have to pay for the attendant to be there and for a certain amount of prints. $500-$1000+ was not in our budget AT ALL. So I decided to make our own.

I don't have a picture of the frame itself without the back drop on it.. but if I get bored enough to put it back together, I'll take one for you to see. :)

I DID however, take a really bad video with my cell phone to send to my mom and sister that I will share with you. Ignore my gross voice. I was getting over being sick so I sound froggy and high pitched at the same time. It's a glorious period when you're getting better. Puberty much?

We went to Lowes and cleaned our store out of the useful 3/4" PVC fittings (I spent a lot of time sitting on the disgusting floor searching through bins to find the right sized pieces we needed), and bought a couple pieces of 5 foot 3/4" PVC pipe. I think all together we probably bought about seven 5' pieces and had a little bit left over. For some reason, buying two 5' pieces was WAY cheaper than buying one 10' piece of PVC in the same size but if the 10' piece is cheaper for you then go for it!

We also bought a PVC pipe cutter which we subsequently broke 10 minutes into cutting the pipes to the right sizes. Whoops. Someone *aheeeeeem*Zac*aheeem* didn't read the directions on how to cut pipe with it. So that's $10 down the drain. It still does it's job, but there's a huge chunk taken out of the blade. Ha



3/4 inch elbow



3/4 inch Tee

 




3/4 inch coupler

  We bought probably 6 elbows at $0.30 a piece, 2 Tees at $0.36 each,  and a butt load of couplers (maybe 6-10?) at $0.20 each.  We had a rough idea of how we wanted to build the frame, but didn't know how it was going to work out so we bought what we thought we needed. Zac ended up having to go back for a couple more pieces when we realized it wasn't stable enough.

Our first attempt didn't seem sturdy at all. And the bar across the top wobbled. I was worried drunk people might knock it over and break something at the venue. Here is my little doodle so you can see what we had initially.
**Disclaimer: I am NOOOOOT an artist**
**It's OK to laugh!**

Our second attempt was much better and much sturdier. I am worried about people tripping over the pipes, but I think they will be ok. I'm still contemplating whether or not I should spray paint the PVC black or white to cover up all of the writing. I'm leaning more towards "I don't care" at the moment. The size of the booth ended up being about 7 feet tall, and 6ish feet long so we added a foot or two to each 5' piece on the frame to make the desired length. One 5' PVC pipe for each side x's 5 sides = 5 PVC pipes + 2- 5' PVC pipe for cutting in smaller pieces to make desired length. The legs are made of two pieces connected with a Tee and each piece is about a foot long.

If I did this again, I would probably plan it out a bit better. Reading all of this makes my head hurt... but when you look at it, you would never know that Zac was cussing up a storm while cutting the PVC, or that I was getting mad at him for getting mad at building the frame.. haha.

Here is our second and final frame:





We very well could have used more couplers than what I listed on the picture, but you get the idea!

So basically, attach pvc pipes together with couplers to reach desired length. When connecting pipes to make an angle, you need an elbow. When connecting the top to the bottom portion, you need a Tee. Simple.

For the backdrop, I bought a black Queen sized sheet at Wal Mart for about $11. I probably could have found something cheaper, but the dimensions were right, and it was easy and quick.

To attach the sheet and still be able to take it off, I pulled the sheet across the frame until we were holding it where we wanted it. I folded the top half down over the top bar and secured in a couple of spots with safety pins. On the sides, I folded the leftover material over towards the middle of the frame, basically making an upside down L with the top part of the fabric and secured with safety pins in a few spots.







And that's about it! If this makes no sense to you.. it's ok. I'm a little scatterbrained! I also splattered red and white acrylic paint all over the sheet to give it some texture. I was worried people might blend in if they were wearing black, so I wanted there to be some distinction!


Here are some photos of the finished booth!

I probably should have ironed the sheet first... but I really just didn't care at the time!

three's a charm...or not.

Lemme just start off by expressing a big fat UUUUUUUGGHHH!

Ok done.

I had my 3rd dress fitting tonight at 6:30pm at the store where I bought my dress. These are supposed to be fun right? The bride is supposed to be giddy and cry and jump for joy when the sweet, well mannered seamstress brings it out with a big smile on her face as she says "Your dress is doooone! It looks beautiful!!"

I hate TV. Where's David Tutera with my beautiful designer dress that probably costs more than our whole wedding?

Totally not how it happens. At least not on my TV show in my head. Going to the store where I got my dress on a weekday, in the evening, is a huge inconvenience. If you live anywhere near DC, you know how HORRID traffic is. The last time I went (and also tonight) I elected to take the Metro. While more convenient in the sense that I don't have to drive through DC towards VA, except for my drive from work to the Metro in MD, it still sucks. Going into  DC on the metro is fine, because everyone else is going the other way... but once I get to the first stop in DC going towards VA, it's like cramming 80 mexicans in Pinto. NOT kosher.

Pretend I'm Jim Carey in this photo.

*sigh* Might I also ask for a little courtesy whilst riding the Metro? PUHLEASE wear deodorant. P-L-E-A-S-E! It really dampens the mood when I'm standing in the aisle of the Metro car, packed like a sardine, and I turn to find my nose 2 inches away from a sweaty, hairy, STINKY arm-pit monster.

So an hour and a half later, I arrive at the Metro station, my mom picks me up and we head over to the store.I wait about 10 minutes for the seamstress to be ready, then go into the dressing room, cram myself into my Spanx (btw- I LOVE these. They are extremely difficult to get on, but maaaaan do they make my butt cuter and less fatty, and flatten out my jelly rolls) and start putting the dress on. I look down at the boobs, and wtf. Little threads EVERYWHERE, missing beads, loose beads---uuuuuuugh. They never fixed it.

I call my mom in to zip up the dress for me, she zips it half way and RIIIIIIIIIPPPPPP. The mother ffing zipper rips right off of the dress. You have GOT to be kidding me. Holy whore in a hand-basket. Now, I haven't gained any weight and I didn't Hulk out.. but I wanted to gouge the seamstress's eyes out at that very moment. 

The seamstress came in and acted like nothing happened.. "Oooo how deed dat happeeen?" Because you suck. That's how.

(Edit: Her name is Myra! I rememberedededed! :))
In addition to the zipper ripping right off the dress, the lining inside the dress was bubbling out of the boob section, and the area under right arm pit was gaping wide open....

She didn't fix diddly squat last time. So now, I have to go back a 4th time on March 31st.

Dear David Tutera,
I would love to have you come make this wedding process stop sucking.

Please? I'll bake you cookies!!! :(