Please Say No

We spent so much time arguing, compromising and finalizing our guest list that I really never took into consideration the size of the room, once we had the stage, dance floor, food etc. I guess I just always figured that a lot of people wouldn't be able to attend the wedding, and that the room was a lot larger then it actually is. I was wrong.


Here sits our stack of returned RSVPs*. As of now, here's the count:

298 Invited
153 Attending
39 Not Attending

We were hoping for only 200 to attend. The room, if we completely change the layout and plan for the night, will fit a max of about 240 people. So, doing the math, we have 106 responses yet to be received and, if all say yes, that's putting our final count at 259!

I'm still hoping to reach only 200 attending, but after a run down of the missing RSVPs, we are estimating that the majority of them will accept the invitation. So, at this point, we're hoping that at least 10 more invited couples won't be able to attend.

The cutoff date for sending back the RSVPs is September 6th. After that date, any that we haven't received we will have to call to find out if they plan on making it to the wedding. We really do hope that everyone can attend and I'm sure that if they can all make it, we will find a way to make it work.

Word to the wise - double and triple check your maximum invited with how many people your venue will hold. This was probably the least wise decision I've made through the whole planning process!

Have any of you come across the same problem when working your final numbers around the size of your venue?

*The one RSVP you see sitting in the opposite direction is the only one that we've received that has more names listed then the number of seats we have reserved for them. I'd say 1 out of 96 cards received isn't so bad!

Prepping the Bride

I've spent so many weeks (and months) preparing everything for the wedding that this weekend was finally some time to prep myself. I spent my Saturday getting a much needed facial and my hair done. With only 4 weeks to go, I figured that a facial would be good at this point so my skin will be nice and clear for the wedding day.

To demonstrate my reasoning, here's a pic of what I look like now, after having a deep cleansing facial (with extractions):

(A super red, and unflattering Miss Hydrangea)

Usually a facial, for me, means that my face will break out a bit the week after but then is super clear and healthy. The woman who did my facial said it was best for me to do a scrub on my face 2-3 times a week from now until the wedding to rejuvenate my skin and get rid of any dead/dry skin. It made me realize how much I'd been neglecting my poor face!

My hair is naturally dark brown, but every few months I go in to get it colored one solid dark brown. It's super dark at first but after a few weeks it fades into the perfect color, so, after my facial, I headed off to get the hair dyed and trimmed one last time before the wedding.

It was nice to be pampered for a bit (the facial included a foot and neck/upper back rub) and revive myself to finish up those last minute projects that I need to get done. Now, all I have left is a good eyebrow shaping and to get my nails done, which will wait until the week of the wedding.

How long are you all waiting to do your final beauty regime before the big day?

*Facial by Stephanie from Aqua
*Hair color by Gabi @ Richard Hayler
*Cut by Patty @ Richard Hayler
(all were amazing!)

The Final Countdown

I logged into my other obsession (or time waster), Facebook, this morning to see this on my profile:

That's right! We are officially one month out from the wedding. I'm getting so excited, at times a little nervous and, most of all, antsy. I'm ready to see it all come together, the signs, flowers, lighting, music, decorations, favors - EVERYTHING!

All of our invitations are out - about half of our RSVPs are back (of the 298 invited, so far 145 are attending and 39 are not) - and our rehearsal invites went out this morning. Now all I can think of are the final things to be done:

- Finalize guest list
- Finalize room layout (and flowers, lighting, etc.)
- Make the OOT bags
- Purchase two more parent's gifts
- Favors
- Programs
- Escort cards (which means figure out seating, which I'm not looking forward to)

And that's just the top of the list. As the wedding comes closer, the less organized I seem to be (my motivation to keep up my wedding binder has been lackluster, at best). What are you all planning to do to keep yourself on top of things for that final countdown?

Boudoir Babes

I want to say thank to everyone for their awesome compliments on my boudoir photos. A lot of you were wondering how to find boudoir photographers in your area and, after Lynn Michelle read my post, she had this awesome link to share with everyone.

(image found here)

If you are searching for a local boudoir photographer, you can find photographers from the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom and Germany at boudoirphotographers.net.

I hope all of you can find a great photographer and have such the good experience that I had shooting my boudoirs.

You all had such amazing things to say, but I especially want to thank GorgesViola, who has been around the hive for a while and remembered my post on my bridal portraits and how insecure I was with myself (not the photos, because our wedding photographer rocks). Thank you for remembering how bad I felt about my self image at the time, and for how far I've come

I hope that this helps some of you find a photographer in your area, but for everyone who has taken these pics, how about sharing your photographer's info below for our fellow readers!

Let's Brunch!

With my handy new printer, another creation was born.

My parents decided, after we've received so many yes RSVPs from out of town guests, that they wanted to host a brunch on the day after the wedding. Many of these family members and friends, from both sides of my family, will not be in the same place all at once in a long time, if ever, so Dad H took it upon himself to plan the whole shindig. I took this as a chance for me to create more paper goodness for the wedding.

While I'm not as talented as many of our other Bees, I still love to create invitations, so I set off to iStockphoto to find some cute graphics and my idea was born. It went from wedding type pics to pears - the perfect pair to be exact!

I took bits and pieces of the image, change the font, and voila - an invite was done!

I wanted something cute for the wording, so I Googled, found and edited the following:

On Sunday afternoon
don’t pack and run
stay around longer
for a bit more fun
have some food and drink
before you start your day,
and help us toast
Stephanie and Ulises
before they are on their way!

I decided to take the pear image and create envelope labels, mainly because I've been dying to try them since I saw Miss Pom's envelope labels. I created everything in Illustrator and used the Xyron with permanent adhesive to stick the labels to the envelopes (which are Paper Source #10 Moss envelopes). The font is Freebooter script, which can be found on dafont.com.

I'm super happy with the end product (sorry the pics aren't so hot, photography is not my strong suit). Have many of you found new hobbies/creativeness from your wedding planning?

A Bare Hydrangea

A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that I was going to have my boudoir shots taken. I can't tell you enough how glad I am that I took them. It helped me with my confidence and self image, and in turn, I got some pretty awesome shots that Mr. H will definitely appreciate.

I went after work, which made me a little nervous, because, after being up since 5:30 in the morning, I didn't look so alert and happy. My photographer, Lynn Michelle, did an amazing job of hiding any of those feelings which I might have felt. I arrived to her studio, many outfits in hand, and she did both my hair and makeup and helped me to pick out which outfits would be the most flattering and good for the camera (which, fyi, I learned that the babydoll dresses that we all think hide our bad parts are usually not so flattering on camera).

Here's a little peek of what we ended up with (only PG pics for you to see) - Mr H. if by some random reason you are actually reading this post - STOP NOW:


She offered me a glass of wine to help ease my tensions, which I accepted, but really only ended up taking a couple of sips during the entire session. She was super easy to work with (aka, she made me feel completely comfortable being pretty naked in front of a stranger), got me to make my natural smile more then I would have thought possible, and did a great job with the final photos.

I started off with a hockey jersey, moved to Mr. H's favorite sweatshirt and some cute panties, then a couple of little lacy numbers and ended with the garter for our wedding, my wedding shoes, some Mrs. panties and the tie that Mr. H will wear on our wedding day.

If any of you are considering taking some boudoir pics for your man, I can't tell you how happy I am that I did it - and I encourage you to take the risk and do the same! Here's a few tips from my photographer on what you should bring to your boudoir session!

*all photos credit to Lynn Michelle

It's Taking Over EVERYTHING

A while back I posted on how the wedding was taking over our entire (previously empty) dining room. I figured it would stay designated to this area, but, I have to say, I was wrong.

It started off with me, innocently, bringing some paper and my handy cutter to get things prepared for various wedding things (escort cards, favors, etc.) into our kitchen dining area so that I could watch a little tv and not be on the other side of the house as Mr. H while I was working on my crafts. It ended up as this:

I have to say, Mom H and I made it worse this past Saturday. If you notice in the pic above, there is a big, black printer on the table now. We made our first trip to the first Paper Source in Dallas and they recommended this awesome color inkjet printer for paper projects. At only $99 (plus the price of a USB cord), Mom H decided it would be a good investment with all the paper projects I have taken on lately, so we headed to our local Office Max and she gifted this to me for all of my creativity (and a promise that I would create a couple different thank you notes for her).

Ahhh, true happiness. Now, not only can I create, but I can print!

It's an Epson Stylus Photo RX595. Printer, copier and scanner, all in one. We went to several office stores until we could find one. Word to the wise - find wherever it is listed at the lowest price and see if the location where it's available will price match. We found this at Staples for $99, but at Office Max it was $129. Turns out, they price match and so we happily left with the printer for the $99 price.

After 14 months of planning, I guess I shouldn't have been all that surprised that our home is now our wedding mecca. Have any of you taken over numerous rooms in your home as the wedding progresses?

Twogether in Texas

I previously wrote about the marriage license laws that will be going into effect come September 1, 2008, in the state of Texas. However controversial the subject, come September 1, this will be important information for all Texas brides to know.

If the couple chooses to attend the 8-hour premarital class, there will be no waiting period on the marriage license (normally three days) and the fee will only be $12, as opposed to new, raised rate of $72. Today, I searched everywhere online to obtain more information on the rules as to what constitutes as an official premarital class, as Mr. H and I already did a whole weekend of marriage prep through the Catholic church.

I'm still awaiting a response to find out whether or not our class is considered "valid" by the state. Otherwise Mr. H and I will have to decide whether or not it's worth spending the extra money to not take another prep class.

While I was more positive about this concept when I first read of it, knowing that the classes and time we put into our marriage prep this past year might not be accepted by the state, and the raised license rate if we choose not to take their course in addition to ours, is a little perturbing. I can understand the desire for couples to take a more active role in preparing for marriage, but this might be a little extreme.

If you are a Texas bride, you can get more information and find the contact information for your local Healthy Marriage Regional Intermediaries here, or you can contact your local county clerk's office.

Rehearsal Insert?

As I was addressing our rehearsal dinner invites yesterday, I realized that nowhere on the invitation does it say anything about the actual rehearsal. Dinner? Check. Directions from the church to the dinner? Check. Rehearsal? Not so much.

(Picture of the inside of our church, found here)

I hopped onto Google to see if I could find anything about the proper etiquette for letting your wedding party know what time they should be at the church for the rehearsal, but I couldn't find anything concrete. I checked our boards, but everything I found seemed to leave it all up in the air. My first inclination is to send an insert with the rehearsal dinner invites to those people who need to be at the rehearsal first (we have invited several guests to the dinner who will not need to be at the rehearsal).

I thought about just spreading the word via phone call, etc., but I think that having it in writing somewhere would also help just to make sure people have an idea of when they need to be there (and plenty of warning incase getting off of work early is needed).

How did you all let your wedding party know when/where they needed to be for the rehearsal? If you send in insert with your invitation, what wording did you use?

It's My B-Day

I'm not talking birthday people - I'm talking boudoir day! After work today, I'll be heading to a session with Lynn Michelle, a local photographer who seems to be very popular at doing boudoir shoots (I found her recommended quite a few times on the Knot boards). Lucky for me, I got quite the loot of outfits at my bachelorette to be able to pick and choose what I'm going to wear for the pics.

(picture found here)

To makes things a little fun I also brought Mr. H's favorite, OLD sweatshirt that I'll probably pair with a cute pair of undies. I really wanted to bring his signed hockey jersey, but if anything were to happen to it, he would be devastated (it's one of his most prized possessions), so I settled for my much to big, unsigned jersey that I'll pair more cute panties. I figure he'll be pretty happy as long as there is something hockey in a pic :)

Another possible outfit that I brought is Mr. H's wedding tie, my garter and my wedding shoes. I want to try to incorporate a few things that are Mr. H's favorite things and something wedding, since that will be his second gift that I give to him on the wedding day. I'm super nervous about the shoot and I hope I relax enough to really get some good pics. I'm not a super shy person when it comes to my body, but everyone is their own worst critic at the end of the day. Let's hope that Lynn Michelle has some mad photoshopping skills!

Are any of you planning a special photo session? What are some creative ideas for the pics?

Cultural Differences

As our invites have now gone out, and our final guest count is about 100 people larger then what we were aiming for, a concern came up between both sides of our family, but mainly from Mr. H's side. In Mr. H's Hispanic culture, it is not unlikely for invited guests to bring along uninvited friends with them to the reception. At their parties, the more, the merrier.

Unfortunately, we will not be able to afford for this at our wedding, and the room for the reception is already nearing it's max capacity. Another concern was that, although stated as an "Adult Reception" in our invitation suite, Mr. H's mom is still worried that her family will not understand this and they will show up with their children.

After MUCH discussion (heated, at times), Mr. H decided that it would be best for us to send out an individual card to each of his family's guests in order to clarify that no children and no uninvited guests attend the reception. He also wanted to be sure that the note was in both Spanish and English, so this is what we came up with last night:

English:

We are looking forward to
celebrating our wedding with you
on September 27, 2008!

To be sure that there is no
confusion, we ask that you please
do not bring children or any
guests that were not listed on the
invitations to the reception. Due
to limited seating, attendees with
children and uninvited guests will
be asked to leave at the door.

We appreciate all of your
cooperation and can’t wait to see
you next month!

Spanish:

¡Esperamos celebrando nuestra boda con
usted en el 27 de septiembre de 2008!

Para estar seguro que no hay
confusión, nosotros requerimos que haga
el favor de no traer niños y ningúna otra
persona que no fuera enlistados en las
invitaciones a la recepción. Debido a
asientos limitados, los asistentes con
Niños y personas no convidados serán
permitidas en el salon.

¡Apreciamos toda su cooperación y
esperamos su presencia para verle el mes
próximo!

Mr. H's mom decided how the Spanish version would be worded after I came up with the English side. I was super hesitant to send these out, but Mr. H and his mom feel that this would be one further precaution we could take to curb any uninvited guests showing up for the wedding.

Have an of you had to worry about uninvited guests attending your wedding? How did you keep things from getting out of control?

Off They GO!

That's right, I finally got my invitations off in the mail! I designed it all in Illustrator and had them letterpressed at Mercurio Brothers. When I received my initial RSVP cards, I was unhappy with the way they printed and the addresses on the RSVP envelopes were incorrect, but Mercurio Brothers quickly fixed the problem, reprinted the envelopes and reprinted the cards with a different design that I created all for no extra charge!

Since the colors of our wedding are solely black and white, I opted to keep the invitations simple, but incorporate our monogram into the pieces. I included a simple map with our website address for guests to access full directions and other details.

Last weekend, one of my bridesmaids was kind enough to spend her Friday night helping me to stuff the envelopes, secure the belly bands and make sure that everything was organized. I had originally ordered my postage from Picture It, but accidentally ordered the wrong amount ($0.42 instead of $0.59). Since they don't create postage faster then 8-10 days, I decided to order stamps with Zazzle. I ordered them on Monday and they were at my doorstep by Wednesday afternoon. Nice turnaround! The stamps we ordered from Picture It weren't a complete loss, though, as we'll be able to use them for thank you notes and another card we will be sending to some of our guests (more on that later).

Ok, I'll stop explaining now and show you the pics!

The assembled invitation with belly band.

Reception Card.

Map with our website for further details.

RSVP Card.

The whole invitation suite!

My sister-in-law's mother was kind enough to do ALL of our calligraphy (both inner and outer envelopes) for us for no charge at all. I am really happy with how it turned out! We got her a beautiful Waterford clock to thank her, but I still don't think it's enough for the 175 invitations or so that she calligraphied.

All packed up and ready to go!

I am def no Miss Cupcake (her invitations are incredible), but I'm very happy with how our invitations turned out, considering our wedding has been the only time that I've tried to create invitations.

Did you all opt to DIY for your invites or hire someone else?

Anyone Hungry???

Last week we had our tasting for the reception and man, it was G O O D! Mr. H and Mom H attended the tasting with me. We were seated at a round table with the same linens and chairs that we will be using for our reception. As the chef brought out different courses based on the items we had previously sent the hotel that sounded tasty, one of the event hosts made sure to keep our glasses filled with wine.

Here's some of the food that we sampled:

smoked turkey taco with queso fresco and mexican crema

Various cheese, fruits, antipasti, veggies , hummus and eggplant dips, foccacia and lavosh

housemade frites and chef selection of dipping sauces

latin marinated beef ribeye

fresh guacamole, tomato salsa, roasted corn salsa, queso fresco and flour tortillas

gulf shrimp wrapped with crispy bacon and jalapeño cheddar sauce

kobe beef slider with white cheddar and applewood bacon

Most of what we sampled, we chose for the menu, except we switched up our carving station. Instead of having a buffet, we are going to have hors d'oevres during the cocktail hour, and then three stations during dinner: 1) carving station, 2) hot station and 3) cold station.

Here's the final menu:

Cocktail Hour
- seasonal exotic fruits, farmstead cheeses, dipping sauce, lavosh, and assorted crackers
- gulf shrimp wrapped with crispy bacon and jalapeño cheddar sauce
- buffalo mozzarella, tear drop tomato, and basil
- asian barbeque chicken with mango on crispy wonton

Carving Station
- roasted beef tenderloin, balsamic glazed red onions, horseradish cream and rolls

Cold Station
- hummus, roast eggplant dip, lavosh and focaccia bread
- vegetable spring roll with snow peas and peanut sauce
- baja style shrimp cocktail with avocado and cilantro

Hot Station
- kobe beef slider with white cheddar and applewood bacon
- smoked turkey taco with queso fresco and mexican crema
- housemade frites and chef selection of dipping sauces

Everything comes in little portions so our guests can try a bit of it all. We definitely have a run of the mill menu, but, to us, it's fun and all of it is tasty! I couldn't believe how hard it was to pick out everything to eat and for each station.

Did you all have a tough time when picking the food for your reception?

Zen Bride

I always admired that Mrs. Magnolia did something active on the morning of her wedding. Now, seeing that I am no runner, when I came across an email from the W Hotel about their Saturday morning yoga sessions (FREE, by the way) through September 27th, it sparked an idea.

(Image from here)

Each session is from 7:00 am - 8:00 am, they provide the mats and it is held next to their pool on the 16th floor. I know that I won't be sleeping in that morning, and I know, after how nervous I was just for my shower and bachelorette, that I will definitely need something to calm me down a bit. Since all of my bridesmaids and I will be staying at the hotel the night before the wedding, we decided that we'd all get up and go to the yoga session, then head down for some yummy breakfast before we take our showers and begin our hair and makeup for the wedding.

I'm so happy that this all worked out the way it did, because I think that the yoga will really be beneficial for me the entire day through.

Are any of you doing something unique the morning of your weddings to calm the nerves and get the day started?

P.S. - For any of you Dallas brides who want to attend one of the yoga sessions, you can get more information here.