The Final Checklist.

So I know I'm a bit tardy with July's checklist, but I've been just a wee bit busy. Here goes...*I'm estimating a 95% success rate!)

• Buy wine bottles for "guest book" & ceremony box Done!
• Purchase remaining bridal party gifts :) Done!
• Attend appt. with stylist for hair/veil If by stylist you mean my mother, then yes
• Attend gown fitting (currently being hemmed, bustled at the next) Dress is finished & in my possession!
• Send out rehearsal dinner invites Word-of-mouth is a handy thing...
• Trial hair/makeup runs Done!
• Finish, print & assemble programs Done!
• Get marriage license! Done!
• Go over ceremony with "officiant" Done!
• Wrap bridal party gifts Done!
• Get final count for reception & confirm with Maggiano's Turning it in today! (170 +3 kids!)
• Confirm & send out final payments for Czarina, Kristen & Kara Done! (Well, final payment for Kristen the day-of...)
• Book airport shuttles and other tours for Australia Done!
• Send "must-take" picture list to Kara Done!
• Finish up music playlists and confirm equipment Done!
• Paint flower girl wands and get them over to Kristen Umm...done. Sorta. She did this for us...
• Create signs for wedding day Done! Dropping them off tomorrow!
• Finalize after-party arrangements! Done. This one is sad. There are no after-party arrangements any more :(

As for our current to-do list, we're almost done, really. In the next few days, this is what we have left...

• Create seating arrangements (assignments done, just need to be typed)
• Print miscellaneous signage
• Pack ceremony & reception boxes
• Pack for honeymoon
• Clean house
• Finalize rehearsal menu and buy any other food we'll need
• Confirm all honeymoon reservations and flights
• Pack overnight bags for Saturday
• Get nails done
• Break-in wedding shoes
• Create checklist for all items to make sure they arrive and are safely returned
• Finish vows and send to officiant
• Print out final copy of ceremony and pack binder for ceremony
• Pack gifts for rehearsal dinner

I think this is all. Don't worry, I have a master checklist at home so we don't forget anything the day of!

Bear With Me.

Things I Hate Right Now:

• 93 degree weather forecasts.
• Vehicles that decide to breakdown.
• Poor timing.
• Seating arrangements.
• Knowing I put important documents in a safe place, only to forget where said safe place is.
• Dishes that pile up in my kitchen sink because washing them will ruin my nails.
• Having to worry about ruining my nails.
• My inner control freak.
• Options.
• Purchasing expensive luggage, only to find that it's actually crap upon arrival.
• Attempting to return said luggage.
• Trying to find new luggage 7 days before you leave the country.
• Packing.
• To-do lists.
• Confirming reservations.
• Breaking in new shoes.
• Hot glue guns.

Le sigh. It's been a rough weekend. But, the good news is that I was able to try on my dress for the first time complete with hair, makeup, veil and jewelry. I am SO pleased with the result. For once, something in this wedding has actually lived up to the vision! Everything else has been close, but the look was just spot on.

The programs and menus, hot off the press on Friday, have been freshly corner-rounded (if any one's counting, that's 800 corner punches, brought to you by these little hands!), and are awaiting the final assembly. We'll be finalizing the seating arrangements tonight, and hopefully I can start formatting the seating chart and get that printed soon. We'll be turning the final count in to Maggiano's this week, and then from that point, just confirming setup times with the rest of the vendors. Overall, we're still feeling confident, and the calmness ebbs and flows.

At this point, I guess that's all we can hope for...

Where Have I Been?

Don't worry, I'm still alive over here.

Strangely, with about 3 weeks to the wedding, things are moving slowly over here. I feel pretty in control and only have a few minor things to accomplish. I've been taking the last week easy, because I know after this week, there's no turning back. It's going to quickly become wedding central over here, and I just don't know if I'm ready for that!

This weekend, I have another dress fitting (checking the hem and starting the bustle!). I also hope to make a trip to the craft store and pick up the picture frames for our seating list and a few other miscellaneous things I need. I also need to paint the signs that Tom made. (They're WAY cute and I can't wait to show them off to you!).

I've spent some time this week finalizing the programs, and now am just searching for somewhere to get them printed (you wouldn't believe the ridiculous prices I've been quoted!). I've figured out the final checks we need to write, and now just need to sit down and write them. Then, I need to make the confirmations for our honeymoon reservations.

That's the major stuff right now, and what I hope to get done this week.

Have a good weekend!

June's Checklist -- Totally Successful!

In May, I was only semi-successful with getting things done on my to-do list. But, with the wedding getting closer, it was time to buckle down. Without further ado:

• Workout 5 days a week. I'd give myself a "B" on this one. I was doing this, until I pulled a muscle in my hip. Worst pain I've experienced to date. Honest. Now, I'm doing yoga until it heals. :(
• Assemble, stuff & ship envelopes. Totally successful.
• Celebrate birthday! Success. :)
• Make sure Tom gets his passport (or else I'm honeymooning by myself...) Got it! And it came in the mail last week!!
• Attend 2nd shower, write thank-yous, unpack new stuff! Finishing the thank-yous tonight and tomorrow! :)
• Confirm men's attire with the groomsmen, and hound them until they've figured out what they're doing... Done.
• Paperwork. Arrange new insurance policies, draft will, etc. Half-done. We have to wait for our marriage certificate to take care of the rest...
• Remind Tom to figure out day-of transportation... Done! We've booked a convertible to drive around that weekend! :)
• Begin working on writing ceremony and vows (!) Ceremony - done. Vows -- I still think it's a bit early, though I've been brainstorming.
• Get new accessories for Thomas (shoes, shirt, cuff links, etc.) Done!
• Finalize bridal party gifts... Almost done. Most are purchased/the rest have been figured out.
• Decide on veil...(?) Well, I've ordered the tulle to make it, and will make a final decision once I meet with my stylist this month.
• Make rehearsal dinner arrangements Done! Now I just need to let everyone know...
• Finalize wedding timeline and photographer schedule Done, too!
• Finalize floral selections & send to florist Boo. Not done.
• Draft program & get quote from printer Half-done.
• Reserve & confirm honeymoon hotels Done!

If I say so myself, that was one heck of a month! Go me! :) Unfortunately, July's going to be just as bad, if not worse! Let's take a look:

• Buy wine bottles for "guest book" & ceremony box (more on that later)
• Purchase remaining bridal party gifts :)
• Attend appt. with stylist for hair/veil
• Attend gown fitting (currently being hemmed, bustled at the next)
• Send out rehearsal dinner invites
• Trial hair/makeup runs
• Finish, print & assemble programs
• Get marriage license! (yeah! I think we're doing it this week!!!)
• Go over ceremony with "officiant"
• Wrap bridal party gifts
• Get final count for reception & confirm with Maggiano's
• Confirm & send out final payments for Czarina, Kristen & Kara
• Book airport shuttles and other tours for Australia
• Send "must-take" picture list to Kara
• Finish up music playlists and confirm equipment
• Paint flower girl wands and get them over to Kristen
• Create signs for wedding day
• Finalize after-party arrangements! Yes!!!

Anything I'm missing?? I'm sure there is...

In the Mail!

On Sunday, I picked the envelopes up from the calligrapher, and surprise, they're fabulous!

Yesterday was a flurry of stamping, stuffing and sealing, but this morning, there was a stack of 100+ invitations ready to head to the post office.

Here they are, in all their final glory:



The completed "invitation suite":

You can see the DIY envelope liners that I did (with the help of my lovely sister Nicole) back in January. I think they turned out quite smashing! :)

Knowing what I do now would have saved me some time, money and aggravation, but the truth is, this probably wasn't as painful as it could have been. And, when all is said and done, the final product is really close to my original vision (and hey, maybe even better?).

I'm so glad to have this done! Now, onward to tracking the responses! I know this will be a fun task, because I was already handed back a blank one from one of my coworkers where he wrote in that there were 148 people attending...haha.

May Checklist - Semi-Successful!

I think I was pretty successful this month... Without further ado:

• Workout 5 days a week. Umm...I worked out 4 times this week. Does that count?
• Schedule bridal fitting for June Check! Meeting Sue on June 20th!
• Gocco the invitation suite Uhhh...let's go with check on this one. At least they're "finished"
• Address all wedding invitations Also a check...sort of...
• Paint the house! No painting, but the dining room is halfway prepped...?

Okay, so May (with all of its outsourcing) was much better than April. Here's to hoping June is even better!

June goals (and there's a lot of them):

• Workout 5 days a week.
• Assemble, stuff & ship envelopes.
• Celebrate birthday!
• Make sure Tom gets his passport (or else I'm honeymooning by myself...)
• Attend 2nd shower, write thank-yous, unpack new stuff!
• Confirm men's attire with the groomsmen, and hound them until they've figured out what they're doing...
• Paperwork. Arrange new insurance policies, draft will, etc.
• Remind Tom to figure out day-of transportation...
• Begin working on writing ceremony and vows (!)
• Get new accessories for Thomas (shoes, shirt, cuff links, etc.)
• Finalize bridal party gifts...
• Decide on veil...(?)
• Make rehearsal dinner arrangements
• Finalize wedding timeline and photographer schedule
• Finalize floral selections & send to florist
• Draft program & get quote from printer
• Reserve & confirm honeymoon hotels

Okay, so it's going to be a busy month. But I'm SO excited that we're almost there!!

My Semi-Productive Weekend...

Well, I'm not going to bother copying my weekend checklist here --- the important thing is that yes, I did get all of our gifts unpacked, cleaned, and organized! It felt SO good to have that done and have our dining room back! Unfortunately, the invitation nonsense STILL hasn't been cleared up yet. I was able to get the designs to the printer, and they promised me a quote ASAP, but I'm still waiting. I sent them a polite email today asking for an ETA since this was supposed to be urgent, and I'm still waiting. (Common theme here, apparently). I told Tom that I was going to give them until mid-day today before I scrapped that and found someone else completely. We'll see. I may turn to my always trusted Etsy.com...

While I didn't complete some of the more craft-intensive projects I thought I would, I was able to get more stuff done around the house, which is more important to me now anyway. I spoke with the calligrapher today...she's making lots of progress on the envelopes, and we should have those back soon!

So, back to the waiting game. I'll update when I know more. Until then, I'll just be working out and sitting by my email...

A Weekend of Tasks...

With the holiday weekend, I have much more spare time than I'm used to. So, I plan to take full advantage of it all and accomplish some of the smaller tasks that I've been ignoring.

What I need to do this weekend:

• Pick up and paint dowel rods and accessories for the girls flower wands
• Pick up, paint & assemble ribbon wands
• Unpack & organize all our new kitchen toys from the shower!
• Mail shower thank-yous (they were finished Wednesday, but I'm just now getting around to getting to the post office)
• Finalize invitation nonsense

This last one, the invitations, have obviously been killing me the last few days. But as always, I think I've found a solution that I'm happy with and won't break the bank.

Before I go into specifics, here's a visualization of the new invitation with my oh-so-lovely Photoshop skills.

Using the blue invitations I still have, I'll be layering green and white mats, the white containing the printing. The text will be black, and our names and the design will be blue to match the backing. I'll be returning the original RSVP cards I bought (luckily they're all still in the package!), and having the company custom cut and print the new ones to match the green of the mat. The printing on that will be black.

Despite all the new paper, and the double-sided and color printing, this will probably only run about $100 or so total. The company I've found is absolutely fantastic, and has promised me a 2-day turnaround on printing, and 3-day shipping! So, if all goes well, I'll still have the invites a week before I wanted to send them. Awesome!! :)

Even though these have ended up costing more than I originally planned on spending, when you add in the cost for the Gocco, this new route, including the professional calligraphy, will probably only end up costing an extra $50. Not too bad, right? When you take into consideration that the average invitation costs $3.50, and ours will end up right around $1.15, I don't feel so bad!

Crunch Time!

With LESS THAN 3 MONTHS TO GO, I'm really started to feel the crunch! This week/weekend, I'm going to attempt to finish the invitations. If it doesn't work, I'm going to have to go professional with these, as I have 2-3 weeks before they're mailed. Since the cost of stamps went up yesterday, I was waiting before I purchased over $100 worth of postage. I have to begin the calligraphy for the envelopes, and then I can finally relax. Sort of.

I don't perceive June to be much work, just beginning to track RSVPs and I'll have my first dress fitting, but July will be where it all happens!

We are SO looking forward to our first shower on Sunday!! I feel like this pretty much kicks off summer for us -- and it's all downhill from here!

:)

The Follow-Up

Remember my virtual to-do list? Well, here's how I did this month:

• Work out 5 days a week. (I've been trying on this one, and about 50% successful in March.) Okay, so I failed miserably at this one. But in my defense, I couldn't move my knee for the first half of the month (nasty infection!), and for the second half, I have been taking the puppy out on long walks...
• Gocco the invitation suite. Man, another fail. But I have the printouts at the house, and should be attempting my first Gocco on Sunday...
• Spring clean. Yay! A success! Since we moved a bit early, I've been cleaning the new house, and was able to clean and pack up at my parents...
• Pack for the new house! Yes! Success! See previous bullet point...
• Keep "fun" spending to under $100 this month. (This one's going to be majorly tough, but this girl needs new tires.) Ummm...fairly successful. I did get new tires, so let's count this one as a success, too...

So, here are my tasks for the month of May:

• Workout 5 days a week.
• Schedule bridal fitting for June
• Gocco the invitation suite
• Address all wedding invitations
• Paint the house!

Hopefully my success rate will be 5/5 for this month...

Accountability...

I thought I'd try something new this month, in the form of a to-do list. I'd seen this done on a new blog I've been following, Imperfect, and wanted to give it a try.

I'll start the month listing what I want to accomplish, and report back at the end of the month on what I did. Here goes:

April's To-Do List

1. Work out 5 days a week. (I've been trying on this one, and about 50% successful in March.)
2. Gocco the invitation suite.
3. Spring clean.
4. Pack for the new house!
5. Keep "fun" spending to under $100 this month. (This one's going to be majorly tough, but this girl needs new tires.)

I'll let you all know in a month how this goes! :)

More Congratulations to Thomas!

This weekend, Tom unexpectedly qualified for Nationals in the shot put!

As you may recall, two weeks ago, I posted about his qualification for the weight throw. As that is where he has been focusing much of his energy, he was pleasantly surprised on Saturday when he reclaimed the school record (it had previously been his before his injury) and became a double-qualifier. It is just so satisfying to watch his years of hard work come to fruition!!

Thankfully he has this weekend off (so we're going to register!!), so his body will be able to slightly rest and next weekend, he'll be throwing even stronger! Maybe I'll even be a diligent fiance and take some pictures and report back to you...

In terms of wedding-ness, my recent lack of posts has probably alerted you to the fact that I'm taking it easy on that front. Our contracts are officially signed for the ceremony and reception sites, as well as for the photographer. Ditto with the florist and the linen specialist. I've pretty much finalized the wording for the invitations, and should start figuring out the formatting soon. Eventually, we'll finalize the menu, but that's not much of a priority right now. Our next big task will be finding the right apartment (which has proven to be pretty difficult, actually) and coordinating the big Spring move with Tom's trips in May to outdoor Nationals (19-23) and Colorado (24-31)...

Le Sigh.

Not only am I not really in the mood to talk wedding right now, I don't really have the time to peruse pictures and such like I normally do.

Work is absolutely crazy, with 2 members of my team on vacation. When you take into consideration my team is only 4 people generally, I have a bit more to do this week...

However, I'd like to catch you up to speed about this weekend. We're definitely in talks about putting down a deposit on the Danada House. I went in on Sunday hoping that I would be impressed and it wouldn't be another let-down. Not only was I impressed with the place, but I found the coordinator so extremely helpful and knowledgeable that it definitely put my mind at ease. We talked prices, capacity, future renovations and how they would affect us, weather contingency plans, etc. We got to see it set up for a wedding, and even got to see the bride, too. Poor girl. It rained all day. :(

Anyway, I'll let you all know (obviously) what happens from here. I'd rather not jinx it, so I'll probably not talk about it until after we've officially reserved it.

And while this seems like a great task to have done, now comes the more tedious vendors: florists, photographers, and caterers. My goal is to use the fall & early winter to scope out possibilities, gather references, etc. Then I'm hoping to actually begin meeting with these people in late winter/early spring. I'd rather wait to do this until late spring, but with Tom being so busy, we have few options. And most of the best vendors book up a year early, so waiting until summer is definitely out. Ugh.