Ceremony Music

I'm endeavoring to be as non-traditional a bride as possible: while I've attended some fabulous traditional weddings for family and friends, for our wedding we want to be more casual and fun.  We understand marriage is a serious commitment, but we want to start our marriage off in a way that fits our personalities.  To that end, I've been trying to come up with ceremony music which will convey that sense of fun from the moment guests arrive, while still appeasing the more traditional members of our families.

A quick internet search will find you lots of websites which list non-traditional ceremony music options (some of which are still incredibly traditional).  One wedding site I really like is Offbeat Bride, which has a great list of "Here Comes the Bride" alternatives. It was through them that I decided on the Vitamin String Quartet for our pre-ceremony music.  Since we're just using an iPod and some speakers, we have lots of options. VSQ does string renditions of pop songs, which gives us just enough quirk to make us (and the more pop-culture-savvy attendees) giggle:

 

For the bride's entrance, I've got a few options.  One that I think is nearly perfect is "Once Upon a Time...Storybook Love" (imagine me entering where the music changes at 1:06).  I thought it might be possible to also have the bridesmaids walk in during the first minute of the song, but I'm not sure that's enough time for the two of them.

We also considered music from Doctor Who- in particular, Amy's Theme. It's a bit more dramatic/melancholy, but Jason absolutely LOVES Amy Pond, and we're both big Doctor Who fans (my Tardis cookie jar will definitely be making an appearance at the wedding).  As much as I love the piece, it isn't quite right for our ceremony.

I still have no clue what to do for the bridesmaids- I only have two, so it shouldn't take long to get them down the aisle, but if I do choose the song from Princess Bride, I need to pick something that will mesh well with it.  If anyone has suggestions, feel free to let me know!

Wedding Favors & Other Updates

We've less than two months to our wedding, and Jason and I have been terrible about doing ANYTHING for the wedding.  I think we are just hesitant to spend money or something.  But here are a few updates/tips we've learned:

- Rentals can be really cheap if you opt for non-traditional chairs and tables.  We're looking at having 80 chairs in "neutral brown" ($0.99 a chair) as opposed to wedding white ($1.50 a chair), for a total of $80, plus plain brown tables ($7 a table, 9 tables) for $63.  Plus $50 delivery and pick-up.  This is more expensive than our original plan of borrowing tables and chairs from Jason's work, BUT it saves us $100 on a truck rental, and the time in the morning of going there, loading tables and chairs, driving to the wedding site, unloading, etc.  The company will even do set-up for an additional fee, but I think we can handle that ourselves.

- Alterations at David's Bridal are ridiculously expensive. $120 for a hem! Seriously?  However I did save money on having the dress taken in by buying a ridiculous bra from Victoria's secret which makes you "two bust sizes larger".  Victoria's Secret: False Advertising Since 1977.

- Ebay is the way to go for bridal hairpieces, jewelry, etc.  You can easily find stuff there for a quarter of the cost at a salon.  For example, a bird cage hair piece at David's Bridal is $49.99- I found several on Ebay for $10.  Same thing with veils.

- Deciding on favors to give gifts is really hard.  However, there is so much available online for cheap, it's amazing.  These cupcake mixes are probably my favorite, but we really can't afford to get them- they are $2.29 each.  I found these flower wine stoppers though, which at $1.42 each, are pretty awesome, and really cute too.

.We had originally thought to do monogrammed lollipops, but I feel like we should give guests something more substantial than a lollipop that cost us $0.50.

I just realized- it's July, and our wedding is next month. Yikes!  We'd better get on that!

The Shoe Fiasco

These have this perfect retro
flair I was going for.

I'm pretty tall for a girl- 5'8 or maybe a little under.  Jason is only about an inch taller than me.  This poses problems whenever we go out and I wear heels- even in two inch heels, which are pretty much the minimum height for heels that are easily available, I'm taller than him.  Jason's one request regarding my wedding attire was that I not be taller than him.  This was an immensely difficult task.  I had originally intended to wear ballet flats, except, upon trying a bunch on, I discovered that no matter what sized I picked, they did not fit. Eventually, at Macy's the MOH and I came upon these fantastic shoes to the right.  They fit perfectly with the style of my dress, and they were only $80 (for women's shoes, that's a steal!).  I thought the heel was about 2 inches in height, and figured that if Jason wore dress shoes, we'd be about equal in height and it would all be fine.

Not so much. I was trying on the shoes at home because I was planning on breaking them in at a gala event I was working, and Jason was very unhappy with them.  We argued about them for about two days- the bridesmaids had already bought their shoes to compliment mine!  Finally I caved and decided to look for something else, since Jason was right, it would look weird in the pictures if I was taller than him.  It is ridiculously hard to find shoes with under a 2 inch heel, even online, because what you often get is this:

1987 called and it wants its shoes back.

I tried Zappos, Macy's, Nordstrom, Payless, DSW, everything.  Finally, I went through Amazon and several hours of searching later, I found the shoes below.  They are basic, low heeled, and a bit boring, but I think they'll do.  They also cost only $60, so at least I'm saving some money.  And anyways, we all know I'll probably end up in flip flops halfway through the reception anyways.  

Invitation Madness

We finally got our invitations done.  Total cost (including postage!): $62.50

Our completed invites. Yes, we are sending one to
President Obama.  Just because.

To the right is our completed invites.  Printing took about 3 hours over a few days.  My HP printer didn't like the size of the reply cards, so we had a lot of trial and error before we got them situated correctly, and we had the same problem with both sets of envelopes.  So I can definitely see why some brides would choose to just pay someone to do this for them.  We also printed all the addresses with the printer rather than hand-printing them, which according to theknot.com is a huge no-no.  Frankly, having grown up in the digital age, I think that is kind of ridiculous.  My handwriting is not nearly nice enough to look good on a wedding invitation, so why not go with a printer?  If I had handwritten them, I probably would have gotten calls from family about how terrible my handwriting is- so it's a lose-lose situation for me. I might as well just use the printer and save myself some time (and carpal tunnel).

To save money on postage, instead of including traditional response cards for some of our invitees, we included cards with the address of our website, where guests can respond online.  We still sent traditional response cards to the more traditional members of our family, but this saved us $8 or so on postage.  We also hand-delivered invites to our friends we see often (that saved us about $20). Again, we are ignoring traditional wedding etiquette here. But instead of spending the average $659* on invitations, we now have more money to put towards the things that really matter to us with this wedding- food and alcohol!

*For the record, I have no idea where the Bridal Association of America got this number (or their upper end number of $2700 for 100 thermographic and engraved invitations).  That seems outrageous to me.  Did those wedding invitations sing and dance for you too?

I've Taken the Plunge...

... and bought a wedding dress.  That definitely makes this whole "wedding" thing feel so real.  Yesterday I went to David's Bridal with my best friend (and maid of honor) and another friend (and bridesmaid) and my MOH's mom, who kindly played the sane, motherly role for us.  While in the past I have derided the quality of David's Bridal, you can't beat the price and can get some nice dresses for really cheap.  (And some really ugly dresses for lots of money. You have to have balance.) We went during their $99 dress sale, so it was a bit hectic.

Special thanks to Jessica's mom Alison
for buying this for me as a gift!

My consultant, Emma, was fantastic.  Her style of dress- very retro- was very much what I was looking for.  She didn't try to push us into anything, and in general was just a lot of fun.  I tried on maybe six or seven dresses in a few styles, and ended up picking the third dress I tried on, which was one of my top five from their website anyways.  I was done in half the time of a regular appointment- though I think that was because I knew what I wanted, or more accurately, what I didn't want, and that narrowed down my choices.  I had also decided that I was going to buy that day, which helped, and probably made my consultant a little more attentive to me since she does work on commission.  With the sale discount, including tax, my dress was $279.  The best part was that I don't need any alterations- I fit the Size 6 perfectly.  At most I might have to have it hemmed a bit, depending on how much the dress I ordered ends up like the one I tried on.  (I've been told I'm not allowed to post pictures of the dress or me in it so I can "surprise people".  I don't really care if people see it beforehand, but the bridesmaids were fairly adamant about this point, and since they were such good sports about the bridesmaid dress shopping, I'll acquiesce.  But here's a picture of my hair decoration, to give you a hint.)

This is the bridesmaid dress.  Just imagine it
in cornflower blue, not whatever this is.

We made such good time shopping for me, that we decided to look at bridesmaids dresses.  Finding a dress for a busty girl and a not so busty girl was ridiculously difficult.  There were so many dresses that one of them liked but the other hated.  They probably tried on 15 different styles, and of course the very last one we tried on was the one they liked.  It's a bit more formal than I was going for, but looks really cute with my dress, and is the kind of dress you could wear again (though I doubt they will).  The best part was, the dress was $99, but because I bought my wedding dress there, they only paid $79.

 The next thing we have to do is figure out what the groom, best man, and grooms-person will wear.  I think the grooms-person will probably wear the same dress as the bridesmaids, only in silver or black.  But I haven't a clue what the groom will wear.  A tux is just too formal for our wedding.  If anyone has suggestions, let me know!

Craigslist

A few updates:

First off, we managed to finally find an officiant available on our wedding date, for a reasonable price.  I actually found her on Craigslist of all places!  Her name is Anne, and she's the "Rev for Whatev", and she seems pretty cool.  When we told her we are students doing a wedding on tiny budget, she opened up her "elopement" option, which is only $150.  We'll pick from one of her standard ceremonies, and it will be a nice, short secular ceremony.  She's done tons of weddings and civil ceremonies, and seems to be a really accepting and respectful of people's beliefs (or lack therof).

Second, on Craigslist, while browsing the "Events" section, I found a photographer who is building her portfolio, and offered to do photos for free.  We're meeting with her at the end of the month.  Her name is Natallia, and she seems really nice and excited to be shooting a wedding.  I actually found a lot of student photographers or photographers just starting out who were willing to do wedding photography for really cheap.  I know that we might be taking a risk, but I like the idea of helping someone out at the same time they are doing me a service.  And the photos of hers that I have seen are really nice.  

Michael's is a thrifty girl's best friend!

Today, I went with the MOH to look at the wedding site, take measurements (so we could determine how many tables would fit), and think of decorating ideas.  Afterwards we went to Michael's, and we discovered that they are the best place ever for a thrifty girl.  We went in not planning on buying anything at all, just to get a few ideas to compare cost.

We ended up walking out with a completely full cart.

First off, they were having a sale on wedding invitation kits, and I found one which I liked.  We got 80 invitations and response cards (plus envelopes) for $39.99.

Then, we wandered over to the fake flower aisle.  I've more or less decided fake flowers are going to be the way to go, since a) Gerber daisies are expensive and b) incredibly fragile.  And frankly, everyone knows that we are broke students, so they shouldn't be surprised by the fake flowers (we fully intend everyone be far too drunk to notice the flowers anyways).

Anyways, Michael's is pretty cheap for flower "bundles"- $7.99 for the orange, pink, and yellow bundle.  I didn't buy any though, because I have time to look for even better prices online.  Then we found the discount aisle and made an awesome discovery- these cute little tin cans for $0.80 a piece!  With a little bundle of Gerber daisies, they make perfect centerpieces on the blue and white printed table clothes the MOH's mother is making for me.   We bought out the entire stock of cans, and it cost us $24.  Hopefully we'll be able to find some cheaper fake flowers online and keep the entire centerpiece budget under $200.

We also found cute little rustic tags for favors ($1.00 for 12) and two rustic metal and wood signs that we can write "Guest Book" and "Name Cards" on.  Basically, I think our style is going to be a "rustic" chic, which definitely works with both our budget and the location.

Total for today: $97