P.S. Save the Date

As I talked about here, we are doing postcards for our Save the Dates (unfortunately we don't get to save on postage because we chose over-sized postcards - reduced postage only applies to standard sized postcards).

As a reminder, here is the back side of our postcard.  Our return address was also printed in the upper left-hand corner (I just cropped it off, so I could post it on here).

The challenge was addressing the post-cards.  We were considering two options: (1) hand-writing the addresses or (2) buying the clear stick-on address labels that we could print the addresses on.  Looking for the easy way out, we had settled on option 2, but weren't sure if the labels would look tacky.

Then, my fiance came to the rescue with his brilliant idea.  Why don't we just print directly onto the postcards.  Why didn't we think of it sooner?  However, the postcards were too thick (we ordered the heaviest cardstock option so that it wouldn't get destroyed in the mail) and we couldn't get them to run through our printer.  Even better idea - have someone do it for us.  We took our Save the Dates and our list of addresses over to Office Max and told them what they wanted.  They said it wasn't a problem at all and that they would have them done in 1 day.  All we had to do was provide the addresses in an excel document and they did the rest.

And is was surprisingly inexpensive.  (Drumroll please....) It cost us $3.57 to have addresses printed on all 50 of our Save the Dates!  Maybe this will also work for the wedding invitations.  Fingers- crossed.

Testing, 1,2,3, Testing

Our wedding website is up and running.  We started our project by looking through all of the wedding sites:  weddingwire.com, theknot.com, etc.  However, we discovered that nothing was really customizable, it was all too "cookie cutter" for us.  So after about a weeks worth of work, we were able to design our own site using Google Sites and we are so glad that we did.  The site turned out just how we wanted it to and we have received so many compliments on it.

Feel free to check out our site here!  Anything I should add or change?  Let me know what you think.

What we've included on our site so far:

• Welcome
• Ceremony & Reception (grouped together because they are at the same venue and immediately follow each other)
• Our Proposal Story
• Engagement Pictures (I wanted to do a slideshow, but am still in the process of figuring it out.  For now it's just a bunch of inserted pictures)
• Information for our Guests: directions, hotels, transportation, parking, and things to do
• Also inlcuded a Thank You to our guests along with a map of the U.S. with a pin for each guest to show where everyone would be traveling from!
• Music Requests
• Our Registries
• Guest Book

What about you?  What does your site look like?  What did you include.  I would love to check it out!    If you'd like to share feel free to post the link to your site below!  

CHA-CHING

So, I finally made the decision on the dress.  I am buying the one that I found online from preownedweddingdresses.com.  The dress itself is only going to cost me $800 (literally half of the original price).  I am so excited about this great deal!

AND I am ecstatic about the corset back.  If you recall my previous post about this dress, I was worried that it had a corset back because I had only tried on the dress with the zipper back.  However, I was able to find someone that had tried the dress on with the corset back and they sent me the picture below.

I LOVE the corset back, I think it just adds the the "princess-y" feel of the dress.  I can't wait to get my dress and try it on.



And now that I have a dress with a corset back, I MUST have this picture of the rings on the day of the wedding.  I saw it before, but completely discounted it because I had no plans of getting a dress with a corset back. I am so glad that I changed my mind.  :-)

I Do (Want You to Marry Us)

My fiance and I are beyond relieved to have found a reverend to marry us.  I am Catholic and he is Jewish, so we knew that we wanted to do an interfaith ceremony, but didn't know how to find someone willing to do it.  Thankfully, we discovered A Beautiful Affair of the Heart.  They are a group of ministers and officiants that all work together and conduct Celebrant weddings.  From the research I've done, this means that they conduct civil-secular, non-denominational  religious, spiritual, and multicultural ceremonies.  Loosely translated, they will basically do whatever you want done in the ceremony and incorporate aspects from whatever religion(s), culture(s), etc. that you want.   

This is exactly what we were looking for.  We've gone from being stressed about the ceremony, to being extremely excited.  We can't wait to work with our reverend to design our ceremony.  We will receive a survey that we need to fill out individually to help the reverend get to know us better and to provide him with a starting point for the ceremony. 

Are you having a non-traditional wedding ceremony?  Let's hear about it!

Something old, something new, something pre-owned?

As I mentioned in my previous post, I am considering buying a wedding dress from preownedweddingdresses.com.  The store price for my dress is $1600 after taxes.  The seller on the site is asking for $800, so I could get my dress for literally half the price!!  According to the information on the dress it is a sample dress that the seller had bought, but ended up finding another dress.  It is new with tags and still in the bag that she got it in.  No alterations have been made to it.  I also e-mailed the seller to ask about any stains, tears, etc. (especially make-up stains near the top of the dress).  She responded back and said that the dress is in, "pristine condition" and that she couldn't find a single mark or tear, etc.  Everything sounds great, but you still never know.  What do you think?  Any other ladies out there that have gone pre-owned?  Tell me about your experience!

To Buy or Not to Buy?

So here's the deal.  You already know that I found THE dress: Alfred Angelo Style 217 (the premium Belle dress).   When I tried the dress on in the store it had a zipper back, so I didn't even consider any other option.  However, I found THE dress, new with tags and in the bag, on sale on preownedweddingdresses.com for exactly half of the price of buying it in store.  I can get the dress for only $800!!  The only problem is that it has a corset back instead of the zipper and I don't know how I feel about it.  Time to make a decision....any thoughts?

Say Yes to the Dress

I posted here about THE dress, which I found back at the end of September (while I was home for our engagement party).  I realized though that I never posted about my dress shopping experience.  So, here it goes.

  After getting engaged, I pictured my dress shopping experience as many future brides probably do.   I imagined my mom, my sisters and my bridesmaids there with me.  Then when I stopped daydreaming about going dress shopping and really thought about it, I was pretty bummed out.  Just over a year ago we moved out to Michigan for my fiancé's work, which meant leaving all of our friends and family.  What that meant for me now?  Nobody to go dress shopping with.  

However, my awesome Maid of Honor pointed out that we were all going to be in Maryland for a few days for the engagement party and we could do shopping then.  I don't know how I didn't think of that.  Well I guess that's why she's my Maid of Honor.  I immediately began working out a schedule with my family and bridesmaids immediately and calling around to places in the area.  

After making some appointments I realized that I was going to have a very limited amount of time for dress shopping (I'd only be in town for 2 days and one day was dedicated to the engagement party).  With that in mind I got onto Pinterest, printed out a few pictures of dresses that I liked, and headed over to David's Bridal.  I decided to take a solo trip while in Michigan to get a better idea of what was out there, what I liked, etc.  I figured that would make things easier when I went along with everyone else.  I didn't like most of the dresses that I tried on that day.  Here's one that I did like and I have the saleswoman take a picture of.  In fact, at this point I was even considering that this was THE one.  So glad that I moved past that!

After this trip the dress shopping was put on hold until I was back in Maryland about 3 weeks later.  As I said in my previous post I had 2 appointments - the first was at David's Bridal and the second was at Alfred Angelo's (I had discovered their Disney Princess collection).  

And so the adventure at David's Bridal begins......

 I tried on somewhere between 15 and 20 dresses there.  I found many myself that I wanted to try on and the saleswoman was also extremely helpful in picking out some dresses based on pictures that I had brought in.  Without further ado, here are a few of the highlights.

 Dress #1:  I liked the general idea of this dress, but it jut wan't quite right.

Dress #2: This dress was similar to the dress that I found at the David's Bridal dress back in Michigan.  I did not like this dress at all.  Somehow in just 3 weeks I had done a complete 180 in regards to what I wanted in my wedding dress.

Dress #3:  I really liked this one for some reason.  I think it was because it was so different.  

Dress #4: I hated this one, I couldn't get out of it fast enough.  My MOH insisted she get a picture.  You can't tell in this picture, but the skirt is very.....interesting.  There are feathers and sequins on it.

 More of dress #3.  I had to try it on again.  Everyone really liked it.  This was again possibly THE dress, but still not sure.  Again, I'm glad this is not where it ended.

After 2 hours at David's Bridal we went across the street to Alfred Angelos.  The saleswoman there (who we later found out was the manager of the store) was not so great at, well, sales.  I showed her pictures of the dresses that I had brought with me and she told me that I wouldn't like any of their dresses.  Nobody knew what to say, we all just stared at each other confirming that none of us could believe she had said that.  I finally convinced her to get me a few dresses to try on, explaining that I wouldn't know if I liked it until I tried them on.  In particular, I was interested in their Disney collection.  Here it is....

 The first 3 didn't work out so well.  I believe that they were Jasmine, Ariel, and Rapunzel.  The worst was Ariel (the second row), the skirt actually looked like pieces of seaweed.

But then, I tried on the Belle Platinum dress and I knew right away that I had found it!

 I'm so happy to have found the dress.  I haven't ordered it yet, but plan to soon.  I can't wait!