Let’s be honest! It is expensive to be a bridesmaid or a groomsman in a wedding! Because of the cost & the stressful moments our wedding party will endure, I want to make sure we get them the best gifts ever!

Poinsettia Dude & I have thought long and hard and we finally have the gifts for half of the wedding party figured out.    We plan on getting the guys some items to finish off their wedding day look – 1. skinny black tie 2. Black watch  & 3. Black Chuck Taylors

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Thank you notes are extremely important and as a bride who attempts to be organized, I have failed in getting my shower thank yous out in good time.

But in my defense, I’m trying to finish my senior year of college without pulling out my hair (since that is very important for the wedding). But alas, I have written all of my thank you notes and they will be mailed quite soon.

Thank you notes made for my by my wonderful MOH

It is sometimes hard to thank someone for towels or knives or basically anything else aside from saying, “thank you for ____.” But it is possible to approach thank you notes differently. When I wrote my shower notes I kept it short. For example:

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Ok, so I’m attempting to not rant about RSVPs before I actually send out invitations (which is soon!) so instead, here is the letter that I will not be sending to our guests, but wish they knew.

Dear friends and family,

We have invited you to our wedding and reception and we sincerely want you to be there. With that being said, there is a dollar sign attached to your head. We are will to pay for you, which is obvious because we invited you.

We have no desire to overpay for a wedding reception if we don’t have to, I’m sure you can understand wanting to get the best price and not wasting money. So please, as soon as you know if you are able to attend, please use one of the three RSVP options to let us know. We don’t want to pay for you and have an empty chair where you should be sitting.

Please pass inform me of your attendance status before May 5th, because if I call you, I want to be calling you to chat, not to find out whether or not you’re attending my wedding.

Thank you,

The Bride

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Is it just me or do you find it extremely annoying when you get bombarded by vendors you’ve never inquired from?  For those of you who just got engaged or have not yet, this post will help you save countless voice mails, emails, and phone calls from bombarding vendors.

When I first started wedding planning, I would give out my information to vendors like no other through bridal shows and websites that had listings for music wedding bands.  I thought, why not..it doesn’t hurt right?  Yea, it doesn’t hurt, but you’ll just end up getting annoyed by so many vendors trying to contact you to get your business.  A lot of times, they won’t just contact you once and hope for you to call back…they’ll call you at least 3-4 or more times until you call them back.

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As I said in a previous post I’m the MOH in my best friend’s wedding, which is taking place this September, so I’m currently working on more stuff for her wedding than mine, mine isn’t until October 2012 so we have plenty of time. On my to do list is her bridal shower and bachelorette party which are taking place in June in Florida. For the shower we will be having lunch at Carraba’s. Since they don’t open until 4pm we’ll have the restaurant to ourselves so that will be nice. We will be decorating with flowers on the tables and balloons around our area. Her wedding colors are pink and black so I’m trying to incorporate those colors into the shower and bachelorette party as well.

I’m working on the guest book, place cards, games, and favors. I have help from her Mom and the other BM’s but I’m trying to come up with the concepts. For the guest book I plan on doing a guest book picture frame but I’m open to other ideas if anyone has any. I thought this would be something they could put in the house afterward. I really like being able to reuse items that are bought for weddings and wedding related events.

I’m debating on the place cards, have you all used place cards at your showers? I could go either way on this but if I find something I like I might end up doing them to add a little more decoration. If you have any cute ideas that would be great.

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We’ve gotten down the point in our planning where we need to solidify certain choices, like where we’re going to register and how/what is going on the invitation/announcements.

One of our big “discussions” involved trying to figure out where and what to register for (which we haven’t yet done). I guess one of my questions would be should we A) figure out where to register and then add stuff, or B) figure out what we want, in general, then figure out where to register?

Right now, all I know that we’ve really got our eyes on is: Towels, NICE towels; the “chaise” to go with our sofa-from Ikea, Nice knifes, and new Scuba Suits… maybe we need another set of sheets.

#1: We’re pretty well stocked on your average “household” goods, superficially in the kitchen.  So much so that we sent my brother off to college with a few extra things between the two of us.

#2: the stuff we do need is random, all from different places, and a bit unconventional: LIKE, new Scuba Suits.

#3: We’d like cash, but aren’t a big fan of any of the “cash deposit websites”. Mr Daisy is scheptical of most of the websites and I think that just using PayPal looks tack, and is vauge…

• One thing I’ve learned from fund raising a few big things the past few years is that people are more willing to donate/give if they know EXACTLY what and why they’re giving, and what the goal is… so for fund raising, if you announce we’re raising 10,000 dollars for, whatever, rather than just saying “we’ve got a long way to go” people are willing to give you more money;  100 bucks, rather than 20 or 50. So, for a wedding, if you can specifically say we need 200 to go to a Scuba suit, rather than just saying we want money, inevitably, you’ll probably end up with more in the end (Rather greedy, I know).
• Mr. Daisy also thinks that people like to hand you something, I don’t disagree… maybe we shouldn’t register for these OR promote PayPal… but just put down our “honeymoon dreams” on our own website.

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So, We’ve been planning our wedding since about December for late August. I am the first to get married on my dad’s side, and the third on my moms… or so I thought… While I was at my parent’s last weekend, I found out that a cousin on my dad’s side has just gotten engaged and they’re getting married at the beginning of August. Lame. I suppose it should go with some explanation that the Utah tradition is less than 6mos of dating before engagement and less than 6 mos of engagement before the wedding, yes it’s a gross generalization. However, far too popular a trend. I just can’t imagine not dating someone for a long time before getting married. My Dad’s mom was so excited for her oldest grandchild to get married, and for it to be the first grandchild wedding. Guess Not anymore.

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I was recently having a conversation with a good friend about the wedding and she announced that she was bringing a mutual acquaintance as her date to the wedding.I was quite alarmed because we’re about 6 weeks away from sending the invitations out and she’s already picked a +1. It’s a problem because we have a tight budget and our venue has a maximum capacity of 150, which we’re at about 146. The person she’s planning to invite is someone I wouldn’t invite to the wedding–and it’s not someone she’s been dating, it’s a friend of hers that we both went to school with. I hope that when she gets the message when when we send the announcements. But with our budget and venue restrictions, I’m worried I’ll have to make it more clear. Not to mention I’m not sure I really want to have the “plus one” there anyway.

Any suggestions on how to make it clear to our guests that a plus one isn’t necessarily acceptable, and  how to let my friend down easy?

I’m like almost every other girl… I’ve been looking forward to my wedding my entire life.  Really, I have.

I’ve always thought about the details, the food, the colors, my bridesmaids.  You name it, I’ve considered it.  Even now, we’re not officially engaged, but planning… and hell, I’ve got the whole damn thing figured out.  I’m so Type A.

There are a couple things, though, that I really didn’t expect to feel.

1. First, I can’t even begin to tell you how many times I’ve considered just going to the JoP and getting this over with.  While a wedding will be a blast, I really just want to be married. A couple times I’ve even said it out loud {GASP}… Mr. Man simply responds with “soon, babe.  soon.”  I guess that’ll do.  Soon may not be quite soon enough, but whatever.  As tempting as a courthouse wedding seems presently, I’m pretty sure that I’d regret it down the road.
2. You know that one little detail? The one that makes your wedding day all about you? Well, it’s making me downright uncomfortable.  I’ve performed on stage in front of hundreds of people.  Spoken publicly.  Man, I even cooked with Emeril Lagasse and was on TV for it.  I’ve never, ever had stage fright.  So why now, self!?  The more I think about, and plan, my outfit, accessories etc.; the more uncomfortable I get.  I was talking to one of my BMs the other day saying something along the lines of “you guys will wear bla bla bla and I’ll have bla bla bla.”  What’s with me that already I don’t like the idea of standing out?  Odd.  SO not like me.
3. Lastly, I’m obsessing about what my pictures are going to look like.  I’m pleased to announce that I’ll have the best photographer ever (I told Mr. Man that if she doesn’t take our pictures, I’m not getting married.  It’s that serious.) and I’m not worried about the pictures.  Work with me here, I’m aware this makes no sense… In the back of my mind, my OCD-ness is wondering if my real wedding pictures are going to stand up to what I’ve envisioned in my head my whole life.  I guess that the groom was always just a generic stand-in made up shadow of a person; and now it’s a real person.  What I’ve wanted for my wedding has changed 100 times over the years; I guess I’m just hoping that the pictures reflect us.  I’m hoping that I execute this wedding in a way that will make me proud 20 years from now.

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I would have to say wedding registry shopping with the fiance was one of the top 3 favorite activities for wedding planning.  =)  We ended up going to Bed, Bath, and Beyond for our first stop since they offered a no hassle cash back return policy.

Dilemma: While we were deciding on what to get, we ended up getting a hefty amount that were $70 or more.  One item was $600!  There were some items that I ended up deleting like the fancy chinaware or silverware.  It is nice and we’re not paying for it…but do I…I mean we really need it?  Plus, most of the guests that will be giving us items are our friends (which comprise of college students, just started working, and young adults).  Our family will most likely be giving us hard cash or a check.   I really don’t want to add in cheap stuff like towels, bedding, etc. but everything else that we want/need is pricey($100-$300 range).

Question: Is there a maximum price that I shouldn’t go above when doing my registry at Bed, Bath, and Beyond?  Or should I use an online registry like www.simpleregistry or www.honeyfund.com for the big items?

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