10 Days Out

Hey there, party people. It's about time for an update. Because in ten days--240 hours--this thing is totally happening. Are we ready? We think so.

So what's been going on? Well, we...

- Applied for our marriage license



- Did our final walk-through at the venue with our caterer

- Spent a lovely day with our photographer, planning out post-ceremony photo-ops and angles



- Experienced a wedding (a sort of practice run of events for us) at my friends Cat & Ken's wedding



- Started to assemble and make decorations for the party

- Hammered out details with our music/PA setup

- Delegated tasks to our amazingly helpful family and friends

- Finished sewing 5 out of 5 dresses for the wedding party, ending on this little number for our flower-girl niece Ella



- And received the first of our wedding guests/bridal party, my sister Nikki!



And you know what 10 Days Out also means? Extended forecast, yo!

We're looking at partly cloudy, in the low 80s. Sounds good to us! Just as long as we're not up against mid-90s and thunderstorms, we're fine. Cross your fingers!

Love,
Gabby

It's an Update! From Joe!

Well the ball's really rolling now. After much deliberation, we have an officiant lined up. We'll be meeting him as soon as both our schedules allow. We're working on patching together the ceremony program, and we're having a great time looking for readings. I like this one. What do you think?

Other than that, Gabby's got her dress well underway and the tuxes are almost picked out. (I'm still torn on the number of buttons. And sequins.)

With crunch time now upon us, it won't be long until the day is finally here! Yay!


photos from our date night earlier this week

Sneak Peek

Here's a little peek at our invitations fresh from the printer, which I am hoping to get in the mail today.

Look out for those soon!

Holy crap, guys, we're getting married in less than three months!

Invites!

Before The Joe was off to studio and work today, we got down and dirty with our invitations. And guess what? They totally got did! Done! Done-zo! It was actually a pretty fun DIY/DIT (Do-It-Together) morning project. We're hoping to get these printed and in the mail pretty soon.

Hey, check out that perfect "Z" that Rommel scratched into my wrist. He must be Zorro or something.

In other news,

You might notice that things are a little different around here. Spiffier, we'd like to think. Be sure to click through all of the new pages on the sidebar. Of course, we'll be filling in more details as we get closer to the date.

Also!
The dress is totally in the works! Spring Break is exactly what I needed to get started on the thing. You can follow my flickr to see in-progress pics as I post them.

Talk you soon!

Love,

Gabby

A Small Update

People, we have progress to report!

At the top of the list: we may have booked our ceremony site! Just waiting on a contract now, so more on that later.

Joe's been calling around to hotels to reserve blocks of rooms, so we should have those details handy in a couple weeks.

I finally had a paper-free weekend, so I got down and dirty with some wedding-related sewing. The bridesmaid dresses are all done except for hems, which will be finished after fitting.

Also, I got the last order of materials for my dress (some organza, silk thread, and veil netting)! So I'll finally be cutting into that charmeuse pretty soon.



Stay tuned!

Love,

Gabby

Six Months

All right people. We're just about six months out now, and we should probably get going with this whole wedding planning thing. For the past couple months, our response to the various forms of the question "how is the wedding planning going?" has been more or less "it's not." Since we took care of the big stuff early on, our efforts have lessened if not totally lasped. Sure, we talk about wedding-type things fairly often (usually along the lines of "are we married yet?"), but active planning is not happening. But that's all about to change! We hope!

Here's what we have to do in the next few months:

1. Find a ceremony venue and officiant. Yes, that's an important one.
2. Start sewing the wedding dress. No, I've not started yet. I'm scared.
3. Set up accommodations for guests.
4. Design, print and mail formal invitations. Oh, yeah, and finalize the guest list.
5. Do our registry. I'm sure we'll have no trouble with that one.
6. Get the photography and entertainment details hammered out. Those are actually in the works.
7. Book our flight for our honeymoon, rental car, and other things. My grandparents have very generously gifted us a few night at this amazing rental house on the coast (more to come on that soon!).

We will, of course, attempt to keep you posted.

Love,
Gabby and Joe

Bridal Show Woes

Hi there,

Not much activity on the wedding-planning front recently. We've still got like ten months, remember?

Anway, we got some free tickets to a bridal show down in South Buffalo this past weekend.

People have been telling me that you can win free stuff at these things, even if you aren't looking to buy services discounted for event-day booking. So we decided not to pass on the opportunity, since we are still looking for a photographer, accommodations, and all the other things that we don't want to think about paying for yet.

But it was a total bust! Not only did we not win anything, but the whole event was a total affront on the senses. All the vendor goods/services were incredibly tacky, outrageously expensive, or both. Think lime green groomsmen apparel at the Tuxedo Junction fashion-show/dance-off. It was that bad.

The only thing we were really interested in checking out were photographers, but we had a hard time finding a good photographer in the mix. I swear, if I see another black and white portrait of a bride holding a photoshopped-red bouqet, I'm going to break somebody's lens.

And seriously? Why is it so shocking that my fiance would accompany me to this stupid thing? I was talking to a vendor and she asked how I talked Joe into coming. He's getting married too right? Why is it surprising that my partner would have an interest in planning his own wedding?

But then I thought about it, and realized I didn't want to be there either.

Honestly, I think we left that over-perfumed banquet center feeling all the more confident in DIYing this thing. Our wedding is going to be awesome, and we won't even need to spend hundreds of dollars on a cake that takes like vegetable shortening mixed with maraschino cherries.



Talk to you soon.

Love,
Gabby