Bridal Sunday = Wedding Overload Part 1

Last Sunday, my MOH Melissa and I took part in what we called Bridal Sunday. I later changed the name to Wedding Overload.

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The day started at noon with the Richmond Wedding Expo. It was at the Marriott in downtown Richmond. I have to say that even though I wasnt interested in the majority of the vendors there and already have a lot of our vendors booked, I had a lot of fun. I got a first taste of my caterer's food -- it was by far the best out of the other caterers booths. And I'm not being biased, even Melissa said it was better. The even cooler thing was, we were guests of my caterer. (Side Story: At our meeting the Thursday before the Expo, Jack asked if I was going to the Expo and I said that I was. He said, go back and change your registration to say that you are a guest of Catering by Jill and we would get in at no charge. When we got there though, the lady at the table wasnt aware of that, so we were charged. But Jack got in touch with the lady who puts the Expo together and I got a refund. I even made a $1 because she didnt have the exact amount.)

Ok... back to the Expo. There were a few booths set up in the hallway leading to the main ballroom. We stopped at the cake booth for a quick sample, and then headed to the ballroom. The booth leading into the ballroom was my caterer. We sampled the seafood mousse with pita chips and a meatball. Yummy! The booth right on the inside of the door was David's Bridal. Thank god we stopped. I got a $50 coupon just for stopping by the booth. Worked out really well since I had an appointment to do some dress shopping after the expo.

Then we headed in the opposite direction going against "traffic." My main focuses for the Expo were: floral ideas, cake designs & flavors, hotel accomodations for out of town guests, stationery ideas, honeymoon ideas. Along the way there were some other booths we stopped at. My favorite was Barboursville Winery; they had a sparkling wine for guests to sample. Justin and I had been there last summer when we took a weekend trip to Charlottesville visiting wineries. Barboursville was my favorite from that trip. The history is interesting, the land is just beautiful and the wine was delicious. If it wasnt so dang expensive, we would have done our wedding there. Another booth that caught my eye was the lady who does monogramming. She had some really cute stuff. *Ideas* for bridesmaids gifts -- maybe.

After walking the booths two times, we headed downstairs to wait for the fashion show. The dresses were from Tiffany's Bridal and it was really nice to see dresses on actual human bodies. Plus the male models were nice eye candy. After the show, we left and headed to the second part of bridal sunday.

To be continued...

8 Month Mark

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On Monday we reached the 8 Month Mark and to be honest I'm feeling really good about where we are in our wedding planning. We have already booked:

our venue (the site of our ceremony & reception) -- The Valentine

our caterer -- Catering by Jill

our photographer -- Shelly Simpson Photography

we've had our first meeting with our cake baker

and I have my dress -- yay!

Posts on the cake and dress are coming soon.

My next main focus is to get our Save The Dates out. The problem is we havent settled on a design yet which has slowed things down. But other than that I think we are on, maybe even ahead of, schedule.

One and Done

That's how I would describe our search for a caterer... One and Done. The Valentine, where we will be having our ceremony and reception has a list of preferred vendors for catering. It's the only thing they are really particular about. No biggie. I saw it as a good thing. It narrowed down our search from the many caterers in the Richmond area. And if they preferred them... didnt that mean they were good?!?! On the other hand, I saw it as a bad thing. If they preferred them... didnt that mean they were expensive?!?!



Well at first glance the answer would seem to be both. See in the beginning stages of wedding planning I had an "idea" of a budget for our catering. The number came from what I had seen online, but we hadnt even settled on our location so how could I really know what our reception food budget would be. But that little number stuck in my head.



To say I was surprised by the prices per person for caterers would pretty much be an understatement. I was in complete shock. I thought $20 per person was the norm... turns out its more like double that. Ouch. My first instinct was... I'm cutting the guest list in half. Serious. We were still going off of our initial guest list, so there were definitely people that we could cut if needed. When I brought up the topic to Justin, he said he figured it would be that maybe a little more. What?!?! You mean you are ok with the price and we dont need to cut anyone?!?!



Onward search. We looked over the list of caterers, pulled up their websites and selected the one we thought suited us best. In comes... Catering by Jill. I called and scheduled a consultation. Amy, one of the event managers, emailed me more detailed pricing for packages that worked best at our venue and the style we were going for.



The Valentine isnt really an ideal venue for a sit down dinner, plus that's way more formal than we were going for. We wanted something a little less formal that would allow our guests to do whatever they wanted; dance, eat, hangout. From our initial search, we thought we wanted to go with their sit-down buffet.



Flash Forward to Thursday -- our meeting with Jack, the owner of Catering by Jill. The meeting started with Jack running through the entire evening with us; starting with the ceremony and ending with our grand exit. He hit every single little detail I had started stressing about -- wondering who would take care of those little things I was picturing for our reception. Then it was time to talk about the food. We told Jack that we were thinking about the sit down buffet and he immediately steered us toward a lower priced package that he said worked better for what we wanted. It's their Beautiful Beginnings Package in case anyone was curious enough to check it out on their website. He said we would get more for our money and the selections were a little more creative -- he hit the nail on the head. Because we are having an evening wedding, we wanted to feed our guests a meal that felt like dinner, so Jack combined the two packages and made a package that fit perfectly to us and what we wanted. Another plus, Jack was completely honest with us.



Our meeting lasted an hour and at the end of it I was amazed. Peggy, the wedding coordinator at The Valentine, had said the caterer would run the show for our reception. I hadnt really believed her until I met with Jack. His company is basically going to serve as the Day Of Coordinator and Caterer.



Wondering what those little details were that sealed the deal?!?!

Catering by Jill...

*provides meals for our vendors for FREE

*will pack a goodie bag for us with a sampling of everything we have for our reception and put it in our getaway car

*will ice and chill our beer, wine and liquor and bring it to the reception -- if we happen to run out they will use their stock

*provides linens, plates, utensils and glassware

*fully licensed and insured so we dont have to get extra insurance

*makes sure our cake doesnt melt (puts in dry ice if needed) and that bugs dont ruin it (covers with a lacy mesh thing until time to cut)

*we get to keep any leftovers

*will do complete set up and breakdown of the reception -- we can drop off our decorations and they will make sure it is all set up and that they are packaged and given to a designated person at the end of the night

*Jack invited us to come see the setup of a wedding in April/May that will be similar to ours



I'm in love, love, love. Our contract and deposit went out in the mail today. YAY!!! another thing checked off our list.

Say Cheese!

*I was waiting to post this until we sent our contract and deposit since thats when its really official.



We have a photographer and I am sooo excited.


I am one of those people that hates having my picture taken; unless I've had a few adult beverages and then pictures are perfectly fine with me. BUT I do love to take pictures. I carry my camera in my bag -- I cant call it a purse because it's almost the size of a small backpack. So my ideal photographer would be someone fun and someone that I know. Wait! I DO know someone who does photography AND they are fun to be around.



Who is our photographer, you ask?!?! Well.... *drum roll please*



Shelly at Shelly Simpson Photography



I met Shelly through the company I currently work with. We were actually cube neighbors when I transferred to the office here in Tidewater. She recently left to go work with her husband and I miss her dearly; now I'm the only girl working in the sales pit. But everytime Shelly was in the office we were always joking around and having a good time. She's just a blast to be around. She lives here in Virginia Beach and does photography on the side -- or as her hobby of love. When we got engaged, I checked out her website and sent her a little message inquiring about her engagement/wedding packages and her availability. Since we were almost a year out, she was available and said she would love to photograph our wedding.


Her prices were less than the prices I had seen on other photographers websites and what I had been hearing from other brides I had talked to. I was thrilled. For probably half or less than half of what "professional" photographers charge we are getting a lot:



Engagement photos

Rehearsal Dinner photos

2 photographers for the whole day of the wedding

CD of our photos

plus... copyright release of our photos so that we can make copies



At the time we were planning our wedding in Williamsburg. Then plans changed and our wedding was moved to Richmond. Since she lives in Tidewater, would she still do our wedding if it required more travel?!?! I shouldnt have even stressed. Shelly is awesome. She's driving 2 hours from VA Beach to Richmond to photograph our wedding. It bumped our price up a smidge to cover her travel costs, but it was still under other photogs prices. And the only additional cost to the package is a hotel room for Friday & Saturday night for Shelly and our 2nd photographer.



I cant wait to work with her. I love the pictures on her website and I know she will get the most amazing shots at our wedding. We havent done our e-pics yet -- we plan to do those in April when it's nicer outside. I'm really looking forward to them, even if I do dislike having my picture taken.

Thursday = Success!

Thursday, Justin and I took the day off and headed to Richmond to get some wedding stuff done. Our schedule:

11am meeting at The Valentine with potential caterer

lunch at Comfort

3pm meeting with potential cake baker

Success! Success! Success!

Our meeting with the caterer was almost as good as our meeting with The Valentine. Now I know why they are on The Valentine's preferred caterer list. Just waiting on the proposal before we can move forward. More details of our meeting to come in another post.

Comfort is one of our favorite restaurants in Richmond, so anytime we have the opportunity to eat there, we jump on it. We've never been for lunch, but it definitely didn't disappoint. While we were there, I took the opportunity to inquire about private parties and got some very helpful information. We want to have our rehearsal dinner there.

Since our meeting with the cake baker was done in such short notice we just did a basic consultation. We told her what we were seeing in our heads and she told us that she could do it. We are going to be setting up our cake tasting soon.

I'm really excited how things are coming along. Sunday is the Wedding Expo in Richmond. My MOH and I are going and then I have an appointment at David's Bridal that afternoon to do some dress shopping. Whew! That's a lot of wedding stuff in one week.

The Great Hair "Debate"

I saw this picture and it made me think about my current hair debate.




Personally, I think she looks better with shorter hair, but I also prefer short hair on me so I'm a little biased.

The relationship with my hair is definitely LOVE/HATE. Some days I love it, some days I hate it. I'm pretty particular about doctor's -- when I find someone that I like and does a good job I continue to see them. And my hairdresser is no exception to my particularity. I figure if you have cut my hair long enough, you understand its complexity. It's naturally wavy, the left side does what its supposed to but the right side does this weird little flip thing. Note: I've only had 3 people cut my hair since I had hair long enough to cut.

A few years ago, the 2nd person who has ever cut my hair totally butchered it. I had never had any problems with her and had been a loyal client for several years. The day of the butchering, I had taken a picture from a magazine of what I was in the mood for at the time. I walked out with boy short hair that I couldnt do anything with. I was in tears. It was another year or so before I even thought about getting it cut again.

Luckily, a good friend turned me on to Marie at Headliners in Richmond. Marie was a ray of sunshine in my cloudy hair cutting past. She's a few years older than I am and so much fun. Our first haircut was by far the best ever. She listened to what I wanted, sympathized with my horror story and vowed to never do that to me. So far she has kept her promise. Most of the time I walk into my appointments and say "Do whatever" and I always walk out loving the current 'do.

However, my last appointment -- which happened to be after our engagement -- was a little different. Just a basic trim is what I asked for and Marie completely understood. She had just done the same thing for her wedding in 2008. Before we got engaged, I had already started thinking about and planning to grow it out. Let me remind you, I had a feeling that the proposal was coming soon, so why not start planning for the future. :) Over the past few years, I've kept my hair short. Right at my chin; sometimes a touch shorter, sometimes a touch longer. It's so much easier to manage when it's shorter. But what I envision for my wedding hair is longer with curls. (we'll work out the details later). So to get that, I need to just go in for routine trims and just let it does it thing.


The "debate" you ask?!?! Can I put up with the annoying long locks to have the hair that Im picturing for my wedding or will it become too much and I cave and chop it all off? I've had short hair for so long that this in between period is driving me insane. As soon as I get home from work, its pulled back to get out of my face. Its super static-y (is that a word) now that its winter and extremely dry. Plus I work in an office with copiers, its what we sell and of course use -- talk about a breeding ground for static electricity. And I know in the summer I'm going to be tempted to chop it all off when the warmer, humid weather turns into frizz heaven. Hopefully I will be able to hold out so that I will be able to do what I want with my hair for the wedding.

Did you have to "sacrifice" something so that you could have a particular look or affect on your wedding day?!?!

Picture Source

We'll call them New Year Plans

Since I didnt make any resolutions, but a few "goals", when I came across this on Miss Mojito's blog With This Ring I thought it was fitting.

One Thing I Will (try to) Learn: to be patient -- I work quickly, but I need to understand that others dont

One Place I Will Go: hopefully Hawaii for our Honeymoon

One Physical Habit I Will Break: wearing my contacts past their 2 week wear period -- they are just really expensive to throw away after 2 weeks so I wear those puppies for a good 2 months

One Physical Habit I Will Cultivate: taking better care of my peepers. Im already going blind. If I can prevent anything else from happening I need to be all about it. Oh and finally getting that eye glasses prescription filled -- I request a new one EVERY time I go to the Eye Dr, but never get the glasses

One Mental Habit I Will Break: Im too critical of myself -- it can be a real downer sometimes

One Mental Habit I Will Cultivate: looking at the positive -- when something goes wrong, I immediately jump to negative/bad conclusions

One Relationship I Will Repair: I would love to reconnect with the girls I spent my high school years with. We graduated and went our seperate ways in college. Thankfully, FB has allowed us to stay somewhat in touch, but Id still love to get together with them once in a while.

One Work Habit I Will Change: dont get me started on this topic. Im going to leave blank.

One Thing I Will Throw Out: a box full of JUNK that has travelled with me every move Ive made. I dont even know whats in the box.

One Thing I Will Eat More Often: salad. I really like salads, but I dont eat them as often as I would like

One Thing I Will Eat Less: Fast Food esp McDonalds and Chick-fil-A breakfast -- those are the only 2 options on my way to work

One Thing I Will Drink More: H2O

One Thing I Will Drink Less: Soda -- I'm trying to kick the habit

One Overdue Email I Will Send, Or Phone Call I Will Make: probably an email to my Mom with wedding planning updates

One Resentment I Will Get Over: cant think of anything

One Person I Will Treat More Respectfully: Justin -- sometimes I'm not the nicest person and a bad/frustrating day at work tends to get taken out on him :(

One Thing I Will Spend Less Money On: Drive-Thru/Fast Food/Eating Out

One Other Change I Will Make In My Finances: save more $$$ -- I always say Im going to put that extra money into savings, but then it disappears and I dont even know where it goes

One Thing I Will Spend Less Time Doing: being lazy

And Last But Not Least, One Thing I Will Spend More Time Doing: getting out and doing things -- I used to be a Social Butterfly and I miss those days

So, did you make resolutions or plans for the new year?!?!

Miss Priss

aka Maddie -- our spoiled rotten furbaby. She's a 2 1/2 year old English Springer Spaniel. We've had her since she was 8 weeks old. As you can see in the pictures, she's very active and we take her everywhere we can.

Meet the Mister

I dont have many pictures of Justin -- he hates having his picture taken. He's even trying to get out of Engagement Pictures. Umm... NO -- we are definitely having E-pics done.

But this is one of my favorites...

Just a little info about Justin:

He was born & raised in Prince George, VA. Just turned the big 3-0 and is the Store Manager for the highest volume store in his district. Earned his Bachelor's Degree from the University of Virginia and later earned his Master's in Teaching at Virginia Commonwealth University (no we didn't meet there). Joined the United States Marine Corps Reserves and served in Iraq. Enjoys good food and even better wine.

Happy New Year!!!

Justin and I enjoyed a very delicious meal at the Melting Pot. Then came home and passed out right before midnight. I was exhausted from driving to and from Richmond for work and Justin was tired because he has been working too too much lately.

I didnt make any resolutions, but I do want to try to be a better person -- physically, mentally, socially, emotionally, financially... just all around. I think that will be a better goal than something like... losing xx amount of weight for the wedding. If I start being better in general, the rest will follow.

This year has some exciting things coming... my baby sister is getting married in May, one of my closest sorority sisters is getting married at the end of May, we are planning to take a trip to Chicago to see some great friends and of course we are getting married in September. I'm sure many other great things will come up and I cant wait to see what 2010 has to offer us.

I dont know about you, but I am really looking forward to 2010! :)

Did you do anything fun or special for New Years? Do you have anything "big" planned for 2010?