Time Management

Remember this post where I bragged about how fab our DIY centerpieces were going to be for the reception, and how much money we were going to save by ordering the flowers from Sam's, using vases we already owned, and...?

Yeah, scratch that.

I am an expert at getting everything that needs to be done completed. I really am. I never missed an assignment in school, I get my workouts in every day, I work multiple jobs. This is a really fantastic quality of mine... usually.

It becomes problematic when I take on too many responsibilities. Because I'm so fabulous at managing my time, I have a hard time saying "no" to things (specifically when it's a job or money-making possibility), and I have a hard time delegating tasks. If I can find any possible way to fit something into my schedule, I'll do it. Often this means giving up time with my fiancé, with my family, or with my friends.

I know exactly where this problem stems from. My mom is the exact same way. She is so incredibly involved with everything in her life--I honestly don't know how she does it. She heads about four groups at church, is involved in about four more, works part-time for a PR firm, writes mystery novels, and still finds time to make hospital visits, cookies, meals, and even baby blankets for anyone who needs one.

A couple of weeks ago, when we were going over scheduling and details of the wedding day, Mom and I both stopped suddenly and looked at each other. We were both thinking the same thing. We're doing it again. 

We both realized that slicing oranges, defrosting flowers, arranging bouquets, tying ribbons, making paper cones and more is not what we want to remember about the weekend. We'd rather concentrate on the 250+ friends and family that will be gathered together for the first time in years. We want to visit, and talk, and laugh. We want to have our nails done, our hair, and our make-up, while drinking mimosas and chatting with the other ladies getting ready the morning of the wedding. Suddenly, the price our florist had quoted for the 25 centerpieces and the aisle decorations was not looking so shabby... and our home-made centerpiece idea was.

The nix-ed idea

So, sorry Martha. It's not that your sliced citrus in vases was not a lovely summery idea--it was--our time is more precious. We'll be going with The Flower Girl.

You're Invited! (Probably)

Sunday evening I put my fiancé, my parents, and my future mother-in-law to work in an assembly line. It was time to break out the box of invitations, response cards, and pre-addressed envelopes we'd ordered six months prior, and I knew it would be no small task.

(My mom never fails to have her "stoic and creepy" look in photos.)

Piles and lists, piles and lists

An enthusiastic... um, licker...

When I first started dreaming of invitations soon after our engagement, I assumed that we'd hire a calligrapher to address them in ink made of white gold (okay, not quite). However, as we began weaving all of the pieces of a wedding together, and budgeting (and re-budgeting) our money, invitations quickly soared to the bottom of our list--we decided we'd be doing those on the cheap.


Then, I began pricing vendors recommended to me by friends, from theknot.com, on Etsy, even materials to make our own from Paper Source, and realized that the $600 I had set aside was not even going to cover the invitations at any of these places, let alone the response cards, the envelopes, the stamps, etc.


Finally, I stumbled across 123print.com. Now, I will forewarn all of you (including those who will be receiving an invitation in their mailbox later this week), don't be expecting one of those fancy shmancy styles with ribbons and tissue paper, blah blah blah. But I was pleased with 123print for the following reasons:

1. Their huge selection of colors, styles, and themes. I'd had a heck-of-a-time finding a modern-looking, not-too-girly, summer-y, pink-and-orange choice at any of the other places I'd looked. But on this site I immediately found 3+ options that would mesh well with our wedding vibe. We finally ending up deciding on the Watch Love Grow style with coordinating response cards, rehearsal dinner invites, etc.
2. They let you design all the wording, the font, the placement of the text, etc. at no additional charge. So many of the other invitation vendors had disclaimers listed like "$0.50 per invitation for an extra line of text" or "limited monograms available" etc. But at 123print.com, you design the whole thing from your personal computer on their extremely user-friendly website.
3. The prices! Wowwwweeeee! The envelopes are free, the shipping is free, it's fabulous! I'm just gonna lay it all out there for ya: We ordered 300 invitations with 300 matching envelopes, 300 response cards with 300 matching pre-addressed envelopes, and 50 rehearsal dinner invitations with... matching envelopes... for (drumroll please...) $165.74. This obviously kept us eons below our budgeted amount, which is now allowing us to splurge on professional floral arrangements for our reception centerpieces. (I know, I know... you're remembering this post where I detailed our homemade centerpiece idea. More on why we've changed our minds later...)

So, they're sent. The (Probably) part of my post title comes from the fact that we were originally told that our reception hall holds 250 people MAX. So, when we were sending out 300 invitations (inviting almost 400 people in all! (oops)), we starting joking about how we would have to call and "un-invite" people if we didn't get enough "no" responses. Don't think we're asking you to decline, though, because after meeting with our banquet coordinator last night, we've learned that there will be plenty of space to accommodate a larger crowd. Phew!

Cookies, and Centerpieces, and Banners, Oh My!

When two people are under the influence of the most violent, most insane, most delusive, and most transient of passions, they are required to swear that they will remain in that excited, abnormal, and exhausting condition continuously until death do them part.

~ G. B. Shaw

(Is it bad that all the quotes I find on marriage are extremely cynical? That is, if they're not incredibly corny.)

With less than three months to go, we're officially neck deep in wedding projects (hence Arts and Crafts Night earlier this week). I've spent the last year and three months or so with DIY wedding projects flying around in my head. I even have a "Wedding" tab on my bookmarks toolbar with various inspirations, and spent countless hours pondering: do I like these favor boxes, these favor cookies, these favor cookies, these centerpieces, or these centerpieces? (You can see that I spent an awful lot of time on marthastewartweddings.com. I even started referring to her as my friend, Martha.)


Although I didn't end up replicating any of those models exactly (Martha doesn't seem as concerned about budget as those of us in the real wedding-planning world), I did use some of my friend Martha's ideas.


For example, from this banner, I'm creating these banners (they're a work in progress--see ribbon order details below!):

I have yet to add the ribbon, but it's coming--actually, more than 175 yds. of ribbon are currently in transit to our doorstep. Mom found some awesome bulk-ordering websites this week, and for less than $40 we scored all the ribbon we need for the entire wedding.

Instead of cutting or punching out each of the circles individually (like Martha suggests), I paid a visit to our neighborhood Paper Source (my latest obsession!) where they sell pre-cut circles and circular labels in coordinating colors. I was able to download a template from their website, then easily print the labels right on my home printer. Honestly, I usually avoid anything printed at home with a template--but these were so easy! I just wish I had found Paper Source earlier in the wedding planning stages...


And, from this centerpiece and this one, we created our reception centerpieces, replacing the lemons/limes with oranges:

The actual ribbon for these pieces are expected in the tremendous ribbon shipment later this week. Also, the drooping flowers are not in the plan--we were playing with these arrangements so much that these daisies were a few days old.


In order to cut costs, we've decided to order our own reception flowers from Sam's. Even though our florist is incredibly reasonably-priced and easy-to-work-with, flower arrangements just plain add up. So, we're going the DIY route on this one. Hopefully we won't regret it the day before the wedding when we're slicing bushels of oranges and defrosting packaged Gerbera daisies.


We had planned to go DIY in one other area of the big day--our favors. We decided awhile ago to give decorated sugar cookies to our guests at the reception. And, at the time, my mom, future-MIL and I had fond images of time spent happily baking the afternoon away. But now, with a to-do list a mile long, we're all about delegating. After some price shopping and time-managing, we decided to send this project out to the pros. We were referred to Shari at Smart Cookies Bakery, who was able to offer us a fantastic price for 260 heart-shaped, pink-glazed sugar cookies. And, the icing on the cake cookie was that she individually wraps each cookie, complete with ribbon in our colors. (This ribbon is separate from the 175 yd. shipment.)