yes! yes! Muah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!

All the pieces are in place. As of a few days ago, we have hired the major "broad strokes" of the wedding. Here they are:

Venue

Caterer

Florist

Photographer (still looking for a videographer)

Music

Someone to marry us

transportation

hotel

Gift registry

At this point I am felling like a mad scientist.....waiting for lighting to strike so I can yell out "It's alive!"

Throughout the whole process though I have thought of myself more like the GM of a baseball team. My job has been to go out and get the scouting reports, se them in person when I can, then hire the professionals for my team. If you hire the right experts, the rest will happen.

Now there are tons of details to sort out, the batting order, who plays where, the workout schedule, etc.....while I will be involved with those decisions, my fiance is really the manager of the team. She gets to make those calls and the day tot day stuff. I am the smartest GM in the world cause I found the smartest manager.

Now let's go win the pendant!

I, had, the tines of my life......

Yesterday we started did one of the "fun" activities of wedding planning, we registered for gifts! This is one of the most highly anticipated events in the process, I know this because since we signed up on theknot.com and weddingwire.com we have gotten at least one email a day from a retailer asking us to register with them. Some have offered us discounts, some just have kind words to say....but honestly I feel like we are being recruited to play football at a Division 1 school.

The actual process of registering for gifts was a good time, it combined the two things that we both love. Shopping, and playing with that zapper gadget that records your selections. I feel like with that zapper, this is how Captain Kirk must have registered for gifts as well (if he was not married to the Enterprise).

I heard from a bunch of people that registering for the diner pattern would be a battle between tastes (more on that to come), luckily I am smart enough to know that my fiance had tons more taste then me, and honestly the dinner ware I had been using for the last 15 years of my life was whatever togo container my food came in. I know that every plate is not made the same, but to me the differences were circle or square, white or red......did you know that there are over 40 different types of flatware sets? A fork is not just a fork anymore! They have names like Toronto (is that where the fork was invented?), Arctic (hmmmm, don't lick a cold spoon), Olympic (one gold, one silver, one bronze....alright I made that up). Go look for yourself.

http://www.crateandbarrel.com/dining-and-entertaining/flatware-sets/1

When you see them all in person it is quite daunting, glimmering, shimmering flatware for as far as the eye can see......they say that if you can count all the tines on the table you will learn the name of god.

we did not actually register for any flatware or diner ware...not because of any disagreements but because they did not have anything we/she really liked. we did register for a bunch of other things.....that we both needed and did not need. We had a blast and I realized why......while you are doing this as part of the wedding process, it has nothing to do with the wedding. You are planning for your life. What plates do you want to eat off of twenty years form now, sure you may only need a two slice toaster now...but will there be a day you wish you had the capability to do four slices at once?

One last thing, before we were on our way to register for diner ware I mentioned it on my facebook status, I am now posting the conversation that came from that...it boils down to "do what she tells you"...still my friends are funny and full of good advice

GUSYA! The DJ experience so far

So far the planning is going well, we have most of the major "broad strokes" in place and honestly most of it is common sense. Is the location where you want it to be? do you like the food the caterer made? Does the photographer have two hands? etc....

The one part that is kind of difficult is the reception music. We have chosen a DJ, although I love bands I always feel kind of sorry for them if people are not dancing....just singing to people eating can't be fun.....for anyone, so a DJ it is.

How do you judge a DJ? Their website can tell you their "philosophy of dj'ing", they can talk to you on the phone and yes you to death, so how? someone suggested going to a wedding they are working at and listening to them.....but wouldn't that be odd? If someone I don't recognize is at my wedding I will most likely tackle them and make them spit out whatever food they are eating (we may have to make "whose who?" flashcards before the date to avoid this).

So we are meeting with some DJ's this weekend, as if that will tell us anything. In addition to looking at their music catalog, and their equipment, maybe I can make them sing?
All I know going into this is three things.
1) you need a must play list (songs I want to hear)
2) you need a must not play list (songs that make my ears bleed)
3) the DJ must make people GUSYA! (A term stolen from the lovely and talented Darbi Worley....it means Get Up and Shake Your Ass!)

There will be dancing at my wedding regardless of the music......but just in case I am doubling the booze budget.

You are worth two stamps

One to send the invitation to you, one so you can mail me back saying you are not coming to the wedding.

as I get further and further into the wedding process, the costs are staring to add up. Not that I am obsessing about them, as we like to say 'we have the money, and are only doing this once". At the same time we don't have an unlimited budget.

One of the key ways to get your budget expenditures down is to lower your head count. who you invite to your wedding is a very personal thing, and according to all the magazines, websites, in laws, outlaws, friends, and enemies...this list will change over time. However the list I got from my mom is not going down anytime soon.

There seems to be two ways to tackle this problem. First is to fight over each and every person that is on the guest list. Telling your parents "I don't care if they invited you to their daughters wedding, I don't know these people, they ain't coming" or setting ground rules like "unless you have talked to them in the last year (talked! not wrote on their facebook wall) they are not invited"...well that will bring a lot of tears.

The second way, which is what I am doing much to my fiances chagrin, is to invite everyone you want and hope that they say no. It is a strange thing to think "i like this person so much I want them to know I am getting married, to who, when, and where.....but I don't actually want them to come.....if they could stay at home but send a gift, well that would be ideal."

In my defense most of my invitees have to travel, have kids, and really only liked me when I was drunk....so out of the 80 I am inviting I am thinking that 8-16 wont show (they say it is 10%-20%).....my fiance thinks, if we invite them they will show up.....or in her words, we are going to need a bigger tent (and budget).

So please, if you read this (and no one does) and you get an invitation to my wedding...to show your love and support, please don't come. It would be an awesome gift.

magazines

The lifeblood of the wedding industry are magazines. Do a quick search for them and you will get more results then people invited to your wedding. brides.com, bridgesmag.com, premirebrides.com, bridalguide.com....even regional! In my results I got NEbrides.com (for the New England bride I guess)....these are just a sample of what is online.
You would think that in today's word that online would be the way to go. All the information at your finger tips, easy to link to and share...but you would be wrong.
go to your local newsstand and you will find many, many, many bridal magazines. Brides like the magazine format and trust me if you are newly engaged your tv time will now be interrupted with questions regarding what you like and a flash of a page in front of you.

something I learned: Do not pause the tv show you are watching and sigh before you look over at the magazine your fiance is sharing with you.

I think the bridal industry is keeping the magazine insdustry afloat. These magazines run about $10-$20 each. Since the seasons, years, fashions, and trends keep changing their is no shortage of ideas in these magazines. Brides like to page through them like air, finding ideas for how to present the cake or escort cards, circling them with pen, ripping them out and storing them for later if warranted. Like a detective hunting down clues to find the best weddings ideas ever, your fiance will pour through these magazines night after night.

How prevalent are magazines in the wedding industry? My fiance recently brought home theknot.com magazine. What started off online, is now a magazine (also a book, theknot.com's big book of lists).

Do yourself a favor, if you know anyone who recently got married, ask them if they still have their wedding magazines and bring them home to your fiance. You will get points for being involved in the wedding, and if you bring home more then 10 you probably saved enough money to have one more guest.

Caterers and all the food stuff

Sorry I have been absent no one who is reading this, but I am kind of busy planning a wedding!
Things have progressed of course, the venue has been chosen although we are still waiting for the contract to arrive in the mail. I should say I have been patiently waiting, my fiance not so much. I actually had to call and put my nice voice on and say "it has not arr rived yet, maybe we gave you the wrong address?" like I don't know where I lived. "please send the contract to..uh...1..uh..2.....uh...3....way, the moon, USA".
The nice lady told me she put it in the mail. It had better be there today.

In other news we have started the process of choosing a caterer. I called a few places (our venue only works with certain caterers and gave us a list) and asked for quotes.

How come every estimate we get from www.theknot.com comes in about 100% less then the real world? We have already upped our budget....twice.

When thinking about your budget here a few things NOT to do:
1. figure out how much you are spending per hour on that day
2. Remember all the times you already bought drinks for someone on your guest list
3. devise ways to get corporate sponsorship
4. figure out new ways to cut costs, pot luck wedding? anyone?
5. drink heavily

Needless to say, when I saw the first proposal for the food budget my first thought was "the food better be easier to swallow then this proposal!"

However, what everyone tells me is that they remember two things from a wedding. The food and the music. So this is an expense we can't skimp on....although they are doing wonderful things with cat food these days....all organic!

first stab at the budget

There are times when you realize just how much alike you and your fiance are, tonight was one of those nights. A few things happened today, my fiance looked at our first venue, my mother's invite list came in the mail, and another venue's price list came as well....combine these all together and we had our first real talk about our budget.

It made us realize a few things:
we both understand this only happens once, it is worth spending the money
do not piss off mom by telling her she can not invite people
sitting on our asses and not doing the budget stuff asap is not the type of people we are.

We had to start the budget today, could not wait, not for a second....even though nothing is final yet. Not he guest list, the venue, anything.

We had a ballpark last weekend when we got engaged, but apparantly that ballpark was for little league play only....we have moved up to triple AAA and I have a feeling that by the end of this we will be playing in Yankee stadium. Don't tell my fiance, she is a Red sox fan.

Nothing makes you feel more grown up then spending tens of thousands of dollars on a single day.
We are both ready for it though, and even the budgeting made us happy....lets see if that holds till after we write our first check.