We Did It!

So, I was a bit bad about putting up a final post (I had these ridiculously long, hard exams 3 weeks after the wedding that I had to study for...), but Friday we got the disk from our photographer, so I thought I should put up a few photos so everyone can see what $3000 and a do-it-yourself attitude can get you in terms of a wedding.  The day of our wedding was absolutely perfect- 75 and sunny, with just a few clouds in the sky.  We got really, really lucky!

Our ceremony was short, sweet, and to the point (and dinosaurs played a prominent role):

We did a BBQ buffet, which went over really well!  Chuck's was right on time, and we ended up with way more food leftover than we thought, despite most people having seconds (and thirds)!

If you are going to do an outdoor wedding in a budget location, cupcakes are the way to go.  No need for plates or forks, and people can grab and go as they want.  They were a hit!  Aracely's Bakery, you rock!

Yes, we had bags (corn hole) at our wedding.  Great idea for a chill wedding!  Jason actually built the boards himself :)

Even though it was only like, 4:30pm, we still got our dance on!  We used the forest side "patio" for dancing, while the side adjacent the parking we used for bags and as a place to chill quietly.

If you have any questions about how we pulled this off, about our vendors, or anything else, feel free to leave a comment!

All photography by LK Captures.  

The Home Stretch

Okay, I've been quite bad about updating this, but we've been so busy.  We're just five days out to the wedding (yikes!) and things are just a bit crazy right now.  This is sort of a stream-of-consciousness update.

First of all, I did in fact book the caterer- Chuck's Southern Comfort Cafe.  It's going to cost us about $600 for food for 60 people, which is pretty damn fantastic.  We're having pulled pork, pasta, and smoked chicken, plus veggies and salad as sides.  They are even including the plates/forks/knives, AND delivery is only $20.  Their food is fantastic (and cheap)!

We had also had a photography crisis- the student we had booked to do the photography cancelled on us last week. Thankfully, one Facebook post later, I was inundated with photographer contact information.  (My friends are awesome!)  We ended up booking a friend of one of my bridesmaid's, who does absolutely beautiful photos (see some of her photos as http://lkcaptures.com).  We are really grateful to her for doing this last minute!  (We also have the same name, which is cool.  I haven't known another person with my name since elementary school.)

I did my hair trial as well- I timed it for the same day as a friend's wedding.  We're all getting our hair done at the Aveda Institute Chicago- it's a school, so it takes a little longer, but it's way cheaper- $34 for hair, $29 for makeup.  The salons we were looking at closer to the wedding site were approximately $120- and that was just for me!  I like the girl who will be my stylist, she did a wonderful job on Saturday.

There are ten million things to do this week, but most of it small- like buying bug spray and toilet paper, organizing the purchasing of alcohol, buying the other drinks and bottled water, etc.  Thursday is our "rehearsal"- by rehearsal I mean where we spend 5 minutes going over timing and then the rest trying to kill all the spiders and wasps in the grove.  Friday is when my mom comes in, and we're going out to meet her at the hotel.  She has generously agreed to store the bridesmaid's dresses, my wedding dress, and the bouquets the night before so that we don't have to fit 4 girls and 4 dresses in a VW Bug on the morning of the wedding.

I've also been obsessively checking the weather report for the past few days for Saturday.  According to weather.com, it will be a high of 71 (I think I might need a jacket!), mostly sunny, with a 10% chance of rain. Things are looking good!  I'm so excited!!!

The Good News: Etsy is Awesome (The Bad News: David's Bridal alterations, not so awesome)

One of my bridesmaid's introduced me to Etsy.  I'd never used the site, but it is addictive and is full of fantastic wedding items.  I'd been trying to decide what to do about the Guest Book- do we do a traditional one or Wedding Mad-Libs?  I'd been looking on Amazon.com for guest books, but most were fairly plain or covered in white satin (which isn't really our thing). However, I found tons of "rustic" guest book options on Etsy, many of which were under $40:

I won't tell you which one we chose, because we want it to be a surprise.  We also found lots of cake topper options.  I'd always thought I'd want this cake topper:

BUT it doesn't really go with cupcakes, and frankly, the characters could use some modernization. Etsy to the rescue (I won't say which one we picked, but there is obviously a theme going on here):

In other news, David's Bridal alterations screwed up my dress.  Nothing that isn't fixable, but definitely annoying.  I had asked to have it hemmed, and when I went in for my fitting today, I found that their hem of the lower layers of my dress (which they did by pulling up the center rather than just hemming at the bottom) left a lovely line across my bum.  It was like they had just rolled up part of the lining and sewn it there, leaving a lump which was plainly visible beneath the outer layer of my dress.  At least the really nice alterations lady noticed it even before I did and was very annoyed at the person who had done the alterations.  She told me they would have it fixed by the 8th, 10 days before my wedding.  I'm in no way a Bridezilla, but if it isn't done right next time, I may get a bit upset- I paid $120 for a simple hem, and frankly, since all they do is alter wedding dresses, they should be able to do a simple hem correctly. 

DIY Centerpieces

Look at all the pretties!

You can in fact do DIY centerpieces for under $150 and with only about three hours of work- IF you have some good friends willing to help you.  Last night my bridesmaid and maid of honor helped me put together all the centerpieces, bouquets/boutonnieres, and other decorations.  Everything we are using to decorate with was purchased on sale from either Michael's or Jo-Ann Fabrics.  We used fake flowers because a) fake flowers can be made well in advance of an event and stored in less than favorable conditions (like jammed in a box) and survive well and b)  flowers are expensive, and florists even more so.  

Our centerpieces are made from:

- "rustic" cans purchased at $0.30 each from Michael's clearance section

- silk gerbera daisies in "bunches" ($1.11 each) cut apart with wire cutters

- gravel (to weight down the cans and keep the flowers upright) purchased from Home Depot for $2.50 (for 30 lbs!)

- Chalkboard table picks, $12.99 for 12 from Michael's (we only used 7, since we only have 7 tables)

We made slightly more expensive centerpieces for the head table, which were made the same way only with two large watering cans ($7.99 each), a larger set of silk flowers ($2.99 each), and raffia bows. 

Janelle, my bridesmaid who is a DIY goddess, also figured out to make the bouquets using floral tape, white ribbon, and raffia to hold it all together.  She also figured out how to make boutonnieres for the two guys. We had a slight problem with what to do for our "groomsperson", Laurel.  Luckily, she is wearing a gray version of the bridesmaid's dress, which includes a pocket, so we just tucked a flower in there, and voila! 

DIY Wedding Favors

Well, mostly DIY.  I bought the favors off of a bulk candy online store, as mentioned a few days ago, and had planned to put stickers on them with names and tables, or maybe puff paint on the ribbons.  Neither looked very good.  Then I hit upon a brilliant idea- why not use the rest of the paper from the wedding invitation kit?  I have about 25 pieces of green paper, which is definitely enough for 64 tags, and I have a calligraphy pen.  My handwriting isn't very pretty, but I think it works.  Here's what I made:

This came to me at 10pm tonight, while sick no less.

Not too shabby, if I do say so myself.

In other news, is there a law that 1/4 of your guest list will just refuse to RSVP on time?  Jason and I have almost 20 people we need to call about their RSVP.  (We made the RSVPs due the 15th- about a month before the wedding.)  I want to get everything for the wedding done in the next week so that I can study for my exams without being distracted by (more fun) wedding things to do!

Cupcakes! (And spiders?)

Our cake tasting!

It's official- we're doing cupcakes!  Today the MOH and I went out to the burbs to try a cupcake place, and they were fantastic.  The bakery is called Aracely's, and it's a lovely little shop in downtown LaGrange (in the words of my MOH, "it's like a small town on a post card!").  The owner's husband met us with a plate of cupcakes to try- Carrot Cake, Red Velvet, Strawberry, Vanilla, and Chocolate.  They were all fantastic, but we choose two (if you know me well enough you can probably guess which two I picked).  He walked us through the options and helped us come up with a few ways to personalize them- Jason's will be Chicago Bears themed, and mine will have flowers.  We were going to try to do something archaeology related, but the best we could come up with that they could do would be a whip like Indiana Jones, and we thought that just might send the wrong message.  Aracely's even sent us home with a few for Jason, since he couldn't be there to try them (he just had them for dinner).

The cost for the cupcakes was a bit of a splurge (around $250), BUT it eliminates a lot of hassle on the day of the wedding transporting cakes/cupcakes from Chicago to Willow Springs.  We also took care of mapping out the table arrangement at the site, as well as making a rather unfortunate discovery at the picnic grove- spiders and wasps.  I think we'll have to go the night before and spray some Raid.

Die wasps, DIE!

Rentals, Cakes, and Other Things I Don't Want To Deal With

I'm sure that I'm not the first person, and certainly won't be the last, to say "I'll be glad when this wedding thing is over."  If you want to save money, every single decision requires monumental research on multiple companies, phone calls, etc.  I'm so tired of it.  But, at least a few things I have been sorted out.

First off, I finally found a rental company.  We had originally planned on borrowing chairs/tables from Jason's work, but they couldn't supply enough of them AND we'd have to rent a truck to move them out to Willow Springs, it just became a better idea to rent.  A few weeks of research later I found Ultimate Rental Services.  In terms of prices for each thing, I've found better, but they cut me a break on the delivery/set-up/pick-up.  Our total for 64 chairs, 11 tables, and a generator, including delivery, set-up, and pick-up was $468.  They'll have everything set up by 9am the morning of the wedding (they'll even handle tear-down!), and the guy I spoke with, Martin, was fantastic.

This cake is exactly what I would want if
I could have anything I wanted for my wedding.

In our plan to save money, Jason came up with the idea of baking our own cakes.  His idea was to bake 5 9x13 sheet cakes, each decorated with something to represent an aspect of our relationship.  For example, there would be a cake decorated with fish, because we met at the aquarium.  There would even be a Tardis cake, because we both love Doctor Who (okay, honestly, Jason just loves Amy Pond).  However, the logistics of this are very difficult.  When do we bake the cakes?  How do we transport them? Where do we store them the day before the wedding?  The hotel?  Etc, etc. So now I'm thinking of going back to the cupcake route, and buying them from a local bakery.  I really do love the idea of incorporating into the wedding things about our relationship, but cupcakes are just easier.  If I could have anything I want, the Doctor Who cake on the left would be it, but it would be pricey.

In keeping with our "theme" of nature...

We did manage to purchase favors which are cute, practical, and cheap.  We ordered them from the Bulk Candy Store online, and they came out in total, including delivery, to $124 for 72 of them.  We are going to tie white bows on them, and then put stickers on one side that have the name of the guest and what table they are seated. I really hope they taste good!

So basically, as the wedding stands now we have a few of the major things taken care of (catering and alcohol being the 'big' things we still need to do), and 10,000 small things which I just don't want to deal with (like bug control, decorative elements, readings for the ceremony, the bachelorette party, rehearsal dinner, actually making all of the centerpieces...).  I now have so much more appreciation for wedding planners.